Oklahoma State Regents for Higher Education asked state lawmakers Friday for $958 million in funding next year.
Chancellor Glen Johnson said they understand the state is in another difficult budget situation, but he had a strong message for the House budget committee.
"Higher education needs to be a funding priority. There's nobody else. There's no other game in town," Johnson said. "If we're going to meet those job needs that they tell us are going to be coming to in 2020, nobody else can do that but higher education."
Johnson cited a report that said in three years, two-thirds of Oklahoma jobs will require at least some college education, and one-third will require at least an associate's degree.
Of 100 critical occupations identified in an Oklahoma Department of Commerce report, 56 require a college degree.
The $958 million request is $148 million more than what higher education got last year, but that increase is less than last year's $153 million budget cut.
"We understand difficulties of a $900 million budget shortfall. We understand them very well, and this is a budget that we believe is, frankly, very lean in order to help us achieve our degree completion initiatives," Johnson said.
Johnson told lawmakers tuition hikes have offset just over half of last year's budget cut.
"For those that earlier were saying — and might have still been saying — that tuition just takes care of the problem and fills the gap, it didn't and doesn't and, frankly, it shouldn't," Johnson said.
In June, the Oklahoma State Regents raised undergraduate tuition and fees an average of 8.4 percent at the state's 25 higher education institutions. Johnson said they're averaging a 4.9 percent annual increase since 2009.
