Higher Education

Oklahoma’s Promise is available to teachers’ children—now let’s extend it to everyone

July 16, 2025

Byron Schlomach, Ph.D.

With the passage of HB 1727 this year, the Oklahoma Higher Learning Access Program (also known as Oklahoma’s Promise), which provides tuition scholarships to students from low-income families, has now been extended to the children of public-school teachers.

As Ray Carter reported last month, the program now allows teachers’ families “to use tax dollars for tuition at any public or private college, including private religious schools. And those who can receive the voucher scholarships include families earning more than $300,000 a year.”

This is an approach to funding higher education that should be expanded to everyone.

The Oklahoma Legislature should gradually increase the income eligibility threshold for Oklahoma’s Promise scholarships, funding the increased number of scholarships by drawing down higher education appropriations over a period of years.

As scholars on the left and right have written for OCPA, it’s time to expand the system of higher education vouchers in this state. Instead of funding universities, the state should transition to funding individual students, with appropriations to state higher education institutions gradually diverted directly to qualified students.

As indicated in the accompanying chart by economist Mark J. Perry, healthcare inflation has outpaced inflation in higher education over the last couple of decades (and likely in decades prior). Higher education has proven itself to be extraordinarily inefficient, able to absorb any amount of funding thrown its way. However, that doesn’t mean educational quality has improved. In fact, while students enjoy many amenities, such as exercise facilities and numerous leisure activities on campus, their academic services are often neglected.

I saw this firsthand when advising for the College of Liberal Arts at Texas A&M University in the 1990s. The Dean’s Office, often focused on fundraising and faculty research grants, was supplied with the latest technology for its letter-writing activities, while the undergraduate advising office, which actively served students every day, often received faulty hand-me-down equipment. University administration seemed more focused on serving itself and faculty than on serving the individuals most people would consider the customers of a university: students.

The upside-down nature of academic institutions’ priorities results from how they’re funded. Research universities like the University of Oklahoma, Oklahoma State University, and Texas A&M University are substantially funded by research grants from the National Science Foundation, corporations, and other governmental entities. Incentives within these and other higher education institutions are not helped by state appropriations that are general in nature and, thus, can be put to any use according to the discretion of higher education administrators. Combined with federally guaranteed student loans that many wish to turn into outright grants, it’s no wonder that more money dumped into higher education seems like an excuse to raise tuition and fees rather than to lower them.

One might ask how giving grants to students in the form of a tuition scholarship is materially different from appropriating funds directly to higher education.

If the money were distributed to the students—the real customers of higher education—the dynamic would change.

The Oklahoma Legislature appropriated just over $1 billion for the 2025-26 fiscal year for a state higher education system that serves roughly 200,000 students. That $5,000 per student isn’t enough to fully cover the current cost of every student’s education during the year, but if it were distributed to the students, the real customers of higher education, rather than granted directly to the schools, the dynamic would change. A student would represent a bona fide customer instead of one more digit in a funding formula, even more so when a student can take the money absolutely anywhere, including to private institutions.

Undoubtedly, any serious suggestion by lawmakers that current state funding to state higher ed institutions be diverted directly to students will be met with horror and wailing by the institutions. But the powers that be should look at it as an opportunity. Enrollment in the state’s higher ed system has declined by some 15 percent over the last decade. No doubt part of this is due to the decline in the nation’s birthrate, but it seems Oklahoma’s higher education system needs some revitalization. That means taking some risk.

Change is always hard. Nobody likes disruption. Nevertheless, higher education is one industry that is in dire need of disruption. Every state legislature has it within its power to provide that disruption by funding students instead of institutions. The Oklahoma Legislature has beaten other states to the punch, including my native Texas, on a number of cutting-edge policies, from school choice to constitutional carry. Student-centered funding instead of bureaucracy-centered funding in higher education would be yet another win for Oklahoma.