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Higher Education agency outlines student‑first criteria and flags Oregon Promise, workforce grants for deeper cuts

Joint Interim Committee on Education (subcommittee) · November 18, 2025
AI-Generated Content: All content on this page was generated by AI to highlight key points from the meeting. For complete details and context, we recommend watching the full video. so we can fix them.

Summary

The Higher Education Coordinating Commission told a legislative subcommittee it prioritized minimizing student impact when modeling 2.5% and 5% budget reductions, held Oregon Opportunity and Tribal Student grants harmless, and said the final option at the 5% level would pause Oregon Promise awards to new students, saving roughly $13 million.

Ben Cannon, executive director of the Higher Education Coordinating Commission, told the joint interim education subcommittee that the agency used its strategic plan and an equity lens to guide recommended 2.5% and 5% reduction scenarios and that its overriding criterion was "how do we minimize the impact to students" from any reductions. He said most higher‑education dollars are pass‑through funds to community colleges and public universities, so agency operations represent a small share of the HEC budget.

Cannon said HEC first examined roughly 2% of its administrative budget and typical governor‑mandated reductions (about 1.5%), and then proposed deeper operational savings that would exceed the 2.5% target if necessary. He said…

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