The Oregon Student Association announced on Oct. 9 that it was closing its doors after almost 50 years of operation. OSA is a student-run, student-led advocacy and organizing nonprofit that exists to represent and advance the shared interests of Oregon’s college and university students.

The organization stated in a post on Instagram that, “for several years, OSA has faced challenges related to our organizational structure and funding mechanisms, which have made it increasingly difficult to maintain sustainable operations.”

Founded in 1975, the organization worked with student governments from institutions across Oregon to provide a collective voice for students in state legislatures. 

Nick Keough, OSA’s legislative director, has been with the non-profit for the past two years. 

“It’s been an incredibly difficult decision to come to the place where we’re at and it’s heavy on my heart and I know it’s heavy on a lot of people that have been connected to OSA through our many decades of advocacy,” Keough said. 

According to Keough, OSA has been a “launchpad” for many of Oregon’s leaders who got their start in the organization and who have gone on to work in the areas of public service, nonprofit management and served in the state legislature.  

OSA has been a fundamental part of securing billions of dollars in state funding and for expanding financial aid such as the Oregon Opportunity Grant, Koeugh said.

According to Keough, OSA had been struggling financially and organizationally since 2019, which significantly impacted its ability to advocate and lobby for equity and accessibility in higher education.

“This decision is the result of long-standing challenges related to our organizational structure and funding mechanisms, which has really impacted our ability to operate sustainably,” said Keough, “This has been compounded by the car accident that our staff was involved in July, where we lost a staff member and our executive was critically injured.”

The nonprofit’s financial struggles were heightened during the COVID-19 pandemic, as OSA’s inability to be on campuses distanced them from the students they were helping advocate for, Keough said. 

According to the State Higher Education Finance Report, Oregon is ranked 44th in the nation for public funding of higher education. 

“Our investments in financial aid don’t keep pace with our neighbors in Washington and California, so students are really struggling with tuition and with the escalating student debt crisis. The need for collective student advocacy around these issues has never been greater,” Keough said. 

Although UO’s daily interactions with OSA were limited, according to Associated Students of University of Oregon’s Executive Chief of Strategy, Ravi Cullop, the two were in constant communication.

“OSA reported to a lot more schools than just us so our interactions with them on a day-to-day basis were fairly limited but they would always be in the loop about our lobbying stuff and we would always be included in theirs, and we would vote on what they do,” Collup said.

With the largest delegation on the nonprofit’s Board of Governors, UO held a majority vote on OSA’s bylaws, daily activities and priorities, Cullop said.  

“It’s really unfortunate that OSA will be closing its doors because it will leave a gap in student advocacy around issues that the University of Oregon and students across the state of Oregon care about the most,” Keough said. 

According to Keough, there is so much the organization has to be proud of: it registered 50,000 students to vote in 2012 and helped pass the 2013 tuition equity bill, which granted undocumented students in Oregon access to in-state tuition.

In the 2024 legislative session, OSA helped secure the Behavioral Health Package, which increases the capacity of licensed behavioral health workers at several Oregon institutions.

It also helped pass the School Board Transparency bill, which requires education boards of public school districts, community colleges and universities to video record their meetings and upload those recordings for the public to view online. 

“We know there’s a need for strong student advocacy, and we are hopeful that new leaders, new structures and new approaches emerge that will continue the fight for equitable and affordable higher education,” Keough said.

Looking ahead, Cullop said that ASUO is working to facilitate student forums and town hall meetings to figure out what students want from their lobbying efforts now that OSA is no longer on campuses conducting issue surveys.

“We know that the torch is going to be carried by student governments, by organizations and student leaders across Oregon and we’re really encouraging everyone to continue engaging in this important work,” Keough said.

The University of Oregon’s admissions office overestimated the number of enrolled out-of-state students for the 2024-2025 school year by 448 students, resulting in subsequent tuition increases for next year’s incoming class.

With a tuition-driven budget, the university is expected to raise tuition by 3% for the class of 2029 for both in-state and out-of-state students after not reaching its initial enrollment goal. With the Oregon Guarantee, which locks tuition prices for students for five years, only next year’s cohort is expected to receive an increase. 

According to the Board of Trustees meeting minutes from Sept. 16 and 17, 2,984 out-of-state students were projected to enroll in 2024. The actual enrollment was 2,536 students.

Although the out-of-state numbers are significantly lower than the projected numbers, there is still an increase in out-of-state enrollment from last year. In 2023, the number of enrolled non-resident students was 2,491.

Anna Schmidt-MacKenzie is the university’s associate vice president and chief of staff for the Division of Student Services and Enrollment Management. 

“With the Oregon Guarantee, the only increases that happen are for the next cohort, and [students] have a guarantee for five years. So for this year’s students, there will be no increase in tuition or fees. The first possible increase would be for the next cycle,” Schmidt-MacKenzi said. 

According to Schmidt-MacKenzie, changes in tuition are proposed by the Tuition and Fees Advisory Board, which is made up of faculty, staff and students. TFAB meets routinely throughout the year and presents the increases to the Board of Trustees in March 2025 for approval.  

Tuition for the class of 2029 is expected to rise by 3%, an increase, Schmidt-MacKenzie said.

“That’s pretty normal. I think if you look at the past five years, it’s been three and a half to no more than four and a half percent increases.” 

According to the Office of the President, the out-of-state tuition for the 2024 undergraduate cohort is $41,865.30 per year for five years and the in-state tuition is $13,403.25 per year for five years. 

Jamie Moffitt is UO’s senior vice president for finance and administration and chief financial officer. At the Sept. 16 and 17 Board of Trustees meeting, she projected that despite the smaller than targeted non-resident enrollment, the financial impact won’t be felt for a few years. 

“This is due to the fact that the small COVID[-19] class from fall of 2020 completed its fourth year in June 2024 with many of those students graduating. This class is being replaced with the larger, though below target, fall 2024 class, which creates a one-time boost to tuition revenue,” Moffitt said in the Board meeting minutes.

The state of Oregon is currently ranked 44th in the nation for per-student state investments for higher education, according to the State Higher Education Finance Report. UO receives a lower level of state support compared to other Oregon public institutions. 

According to the UO Transparency and Accountability website, in 2019, UO received $72.4 million in total funding from the state, while Oregon State University received $211.3 million and Portland State University received $97.6 million. This has resulted in UO relying more heavily on student tuition. 

This year, according to UO spokesperson Eric Howald, the school is receiving roughly $90 million from the state with a budget of roughly $600 million. 

The two main sources of UO’s budget are student tuition and state government support, and they cover a majority of the university’s academic operating costs. 

“Many of our expenses have to do with our faculty and staff. Labor costs are high. They’re roughly 80% of our budget. That three and a half to four [percent] increases in tuition [are] a reflection of those higher costs and many of those rest with the labor market,” Schmidt-MacKenzie said.

In order to predict the number of enrolled students each year, Schmidt-MacKenzie said, an enrollment team creates a “glide path of targets,” using different forms of data. 

“We look at how many students are applying to the University of Oregon, we look at data like, ‘How many people are coming to visit campus? Are they enjoying their campus experience?’” Schmidt-MacKenzie said. “We’re always trying to take that feedback and use that data to say, ‘How many students do we think are going to show up on day one or week four?’”   

The university is making plans to increase the number of out-of-state students at a faster rate, according to the Board of Trustees meeting minutes from Sept. 16 and 17. Moffitt announced plans for a new scholarship aimed at non-resident students. 

“As was discussed in the Board meeting last September for fall 2024 [FY25], the university launched a new scholarship program to attract more non-resident students. Roughly $16 million in incremental remissions was authorized with the aspiration of reaching a fall 2024 non-resident and international student class of 3,134 students.”