In a recent article I mentioned that “over the last two decades, the Regents for Higher Education appropriation has grown by 33 percent when adjusted for inflation—from $800 million to $1.02 billion (when adjusted to current dollars).”

Perhaps surprisingly, then, tuition and fees have also been steadily increasing even as state appropriations increased. 

Publicly available data on the Regents website only goes back to 2008. From 2008 to 2024 tuition and fees have increased at Oklahoma’s three major public universities by an average of 31 percent (when adjusted for inflation to current dollars). OU raised tuition and fees by 20 percent, OSU by 18 percent, and UCO by 55 percent.

Sources: Oklahoma State Regents for Higher Education; U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, CPI Inflation Calculator

By way of comparison, since 2008 Oklahomans’ per capita income has grown by only 5 percent when adjusted for inflation.

Sources: Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis; U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, CPI Inflation Calculator