Governor of Oregon Tina Kotek has proposed a 2025-2027 budget of $137,745 million, which she has dubbed “Building On Progress.” Her goals with this budget are an Oregon where no one has to sleep outside, an Oregon where healthcare is there when you need it, and an Oregon where the promise of every child is realized. While these goals are noble, the budget itself actually harms many Oregonians, as the budget no longer provides funding to college benefits navigators. If benefit navigators get their funding cut, it will be very detrimental to students’ well-being.
Since 2021, Oregon college students have had access to benefits navigators in their college, they help students access food stamps, rental assistance, childcare, and emergency support. Koteks proposed budget would slash the funding necessary to upkeep benefits navigators to $0. When confronted about this issue, Kotek’s office responded, “The Governor stands behind her budget,” which essentially translates to they don’t care. They should care though, because in the last three years around 40,000 students have relied on these services to stay in college.
If the funding is cut, colleges will either pull funding away from other services to fund navigators or give the responsibilities of benefits navigators to other workers, which would disrupt the current system and would overburden workers. At a time when, according to the director of Community Colleges and Workforce Development, Donna Leweling, almost half of all Oregon community college students face housing or food insecurity, now is not the time to cut this crucial funding. The need for navigators is continuing to grow as well, as from 2022-2024 the amount of students being helped in the year by navigators went from 8,000 to 18,000.
Given that so many students rely on these services, it makes sense that many advocates are against these budget cuts. On February 27, 109 people advocated to lawmakers in Oregon against these budget cuts. But they weren’t just advocating against these budget cuts, but advocating for solutions to students problems as well. These solutions take form in the two bills HB 3182 and 3183, dubbed the “Student Basic Needs and Workforce Stabilization Act”.
HB 3182 provides three proposals to fix student issues. It provides for $10 million to benefit navigators for student support, it provides $6.5 million for rent-assistance programs across the state, and the creation of a College Housing Task Force. By funding these crucial programs, we are helping alleviate students’ struggles, and with a task force we can look towards long-term solutions to these problems as well. HB 3183 is much more focused on a singular issue, with $5.2 million to Open Educational Resources. OER is a program which pays professors to create free or reduced-cost textbooks for students to use and has saved students $25 million dollars since the program started in 2015. Through the amendment of Kotek’s budget to include benefits navigators and the passage of these proposed bills by student advocates, we would be able to greatly alleviate student struggles and create long-term solutions as well.
