SALEM — Oregon has clawed its way out of the bottom of state rankings for higher education spending, but is still far from reaching national averages for per-student funding, according to a national report.

The latest State Higher Education Finance report, released in June, shows Oregon’s state and local governments appropriated $7,395 higher education dollars per student in fiscal year 2021, the state’s highest per-student spending since 2001. That marks a 10% increase in per-student spending from 2020. Oregon is among a minority of states where spending has rebounded to pre-Great Recession levels.

But those numbers come with a big caveat, said Ben Cannon, director of the Oregon Higher Education Coordinating Commission, during a Hunt Institute panel on July 26. Student enrollment is way down, Cannon said, which skews per-student funding and is undermining school budgets.

Oregon also still lags far behind the national average of $9,327 in per-student spending, spends less on financial aid per-student than the national average and relies on students to shoulder an above-average share of higher education revenue.

“This is the story of mild gain, but a long way to go,” Cannon told The Oregonian. “When we look at those increasing investments, we see enormous remaining need.”

The COVID-19 pandemic upended typical higher education budget predictions, the State Higher Education Finance report confirmed. Typically, more students go to college during recessions and states tighten budgets and slash higher education funding. However, a different trend played out during the brief pandemic recession. Full-time enrollment plummeted a record 3% nationwide, wounding community colleges most. State lawmakers, expected to cut higher education funding, instead increased funding in college systems using federal stimulus dollars.

“Many states were committed to higher education by choosing to put stimulus funds, or their own state and local funds toward maintaining or increasing levels of funding,” Kelsey Kunkle, co-author of the report said during the Hunt Institute talk. “But it’s also really important to give this finding within the context that most states still haven’t fully recovered from the 2001 and 2008 recessions.”

Less than a decade ago, Oregon ranked among the bottom of states for per-student spending in higher education, after some of the steepest budget cuts in the country following the Great Recession.

The state has since made a 57% increase in higher education spending per-student, eclipsing pre-2008 recession funding levels, Cannon said. The latest report ranks Oregon 36th for per-student funding.

State legislators have been upping the funding to higher education over the past several budget cycles. Cannon says lawmakers are paying attention to workforce needs and the state’s dependence on college programs to provide the degrees and certificates to equip students for the job market. He’s also seen increased concern about equity, and the fact that low income students, rural students and students of color don’t see the same college completion rates as their more advantaged peers.

Despite increases in state funding, Oregon students still pay an outsized share of college revenue.

Across the country, student tuition makes up about 42% of higher education revenue, roughly double the contribution that tuition provided in 1980.

But Oregon is among 20 states where tuition dollars actually make up the majority of revenue. In 2021, tuition dollars made up 54% of revenue at Oregon’s public colleges and universities. This is down from the nearly 64% that Oregon students shouldered in 2015, but far higher than the percentage of revenue that students contribute in neighboring states. Only 35% of Washington’s higher education revenue and 20% of California’s revenue come from tuition.

Students studying at Oregon’s public universities contribute to a greater share of school revenue than those at community college, which lean more heavily on state appropriations. Tuition revenue makes up about 23% of revenue at community colleges, and 69% at four-year schools.

Oregon also comes up short when it comes to providing state financial aid for students. Financial aid allocations in 2021 amounted to $574 per full-time student, compared to the national average of $921, according to the report. Washington allocated more than three times as much as Oregon in financial aid per full-time student, at over $1,900 in 2021.

“Students in Oregon continue to pay higher than average price tags to access college and university, incurring greater than average debt loads,” Cannon said. “We have a lot of work to do to expand the benefits of postsecondary education more broadly and equitably, and I think that should be a real call to action for Oregonians and Oregon policy makers.”