President Wim Wiewel spoke at length about PSU’s current approach to the tuition issue during a press conference on November 21, 2011. The University plans to advocate strongly in the state legislature “to prevent further cuts in the state allocation and eventually increase the state allocation again… Another focus is on philanthropy and increasing charitable donations to the university…The third important piece is a greater recruitment of out-of state students.” The drastically increasing recruitment of out-of-state students has been a somewhat contentious issue as of late.

Wim Wiewel: Now I want to be very clear on this. We want out-of-state students because they add very important diversity in a broad sense of the word; because recruitment of out-of-state students is a marker of quality. They will not come if you’re not a good university. So it’s an implicit way of making sure we stay a good university. But thirdly, it’s also true that they pay more tuition, and that helps us with the fact that the State of Oregon gives us so little money to conduct our business.

Rearguard: On February 8, 2011, in a panel discussion on the future of higher education in Oregon, you said, “Recruiting out-of-state-students does nothing for the citizens of the state. It doesn’t work, because it will preclude access,”

WW: I don’t think I said those things.

RG: It was on film.

WW: I never said that. It does not preclude access.

That video can be found here: www.youtube.com/watch?v=RrcBr_wzEnU

In this video President Wim Wiewel begins his speech at 8:00, saying:

“It’s not the cost that has changed, it’s the price we have to charge to the student that has changed, because the public sector, for a whole variety of reasons that we can go into, has walked away from the notion that education is really a public good, and therefore ought to be paid for from the public sector…One solution that many universities throughout this country are following is to just say, ‘You know what? We will just recruit out-of-state students. We will just recruit out-of-state students because we can charge them a higher tuition. And that’s how we can at least keep the institution afloat.’ Now does that do anything for the citizens of the state? Of course not. It doesn’t work, because it will preclude access for the vast group of people who can’t afford to go to a private university, or can’t afford to send their children out of state, or who can’t afford to pay the ever-rising cost of tuition.” (emphasis added)

While denying his statement earlier this year, Wiewel explained in November’s press conference why recruiting out-of-state students does not preclude access:

WW: We do not have a fixed number of spots, so it’s not the case at all that by admitting an out-of-state student we now cannot admit an in-state student. At Portland State, once you meet our minimum standard, which basically is a 3.0 GPA…we admit you. It’s not like we said, ‘Oh, we only had room for 100 students, or 1000 students.”

RG: So it won’t limit the Oregon students who are admitted, so it won’t really affect Oregon’s 40-40-20 goals?

WW: No, no, not at all. Not at all.

RG: Does this seem like a sustainable long-term strategy to you?

WW: Yeah. And our goal is to bring it up to about 30 percent. Right now it’s 20 percent of our student body. So it’s not to grow forever, until we reach 99.9 percent or something. Thirty percent is a reasonable goal that will provide us with somewhat more resources. None of these things, by itself, will solve our problems.

In light of the Occupy PSU student walkout that had just taken place, the Rearguard also wished to gauge Wiewel’s opinion on the state of discontent amongst the student body and faculty.

RG: As you know, there was a large rally outside your office in the park blocks last week; and earlier this year you also said—and you’ve said this a couple of times—essentially, that students are consumers of education, that they don’t get a say in how the product is manufactured, that they just get to decide whether or not they want to purchase the product.

WW: Are these quotes? That’s not my language at all. Those are not my quotes at all.

In regards to Wiewel’s denial of the use of language that explicitly compares PSU to a business enterprise and compares students to consumers who don't get a say in how the product is manufactured, an example can be found in the same video [www.youtube.com/watch?v=RrcBr_wzEnU], at approximately 1:24:00.

RG: Okay. I promise to send it to you [the video]. But I’m wondering if you think that that type of language dominating the discourse on higher education that alludes to a shift from an education model to more of a business model running the university has anything to do with the state of discontent and the declining morale amongst faculty and students?

WW: No, I don’t think so. First of all, there’s absolutely no evidence of declining morale. How many students were out there [at the student walkout]? So whatever that number is, that means there were 29,500 who were not, alright? So you’ve got to keep a little perspective on this. I actually rarely use the consumer metaphor, because the big difference between education and other activities is that, if you want to use a production metaphor, students are the co-producers of knowledge. The professor does not create the knowledge that’s bought in a package by a student. It’s a coproduction process. And that’s really where the stuff really happens. I always hate using terms like ‘declining morale,’ because there’s no measure of that; nobody’s ever measured morale. It’s not like we’re doing surveys that measure that.

Wiewel argued that morale has not fundamentally changed, and that there is simply rising activism on campus inspired by the Occupy movement. Notably, this incident was the fifth student walkout that has occurred in his short time as PSU President, a position he took in Fall 2008. Other walkouts were held during Winter Term in 2009, Winter 2010, Fall 2010, and Winter 2011—all well before the Occupy movement began.

When asked whether he believed it to be a wise move for the student movement to take on the “Occupy” moniker, Wiewel stated, “It’s a smart move,” and “It has a lot of legitimacy:”

Wim Wiewel: I think there’s certainly, to me, legitimacy in the connection between the two. The main issue that the Occupy PSU movement raises, I think, is the question of tuition having gone up faster than household incomes have and the public sector really reducing its commitment to education as a public good. And that can certainly be seen or interpreted as a reflection of a lot of other things going on in this country, where there is less emphasis on the public good and more emphasis on the private good. Of course, it is good for the whole state when we have a highly educated population, and an innovative business community, and an effective government; that’s good for everybody. So that’s the public good. And that’s why, in my view, it’s worth having the public sector invest in it.

Rearguard: I’m wondering about your stance on some of the students’ concerns. You said the main concern, and I would agree with you, is that tuition is rising faster than household income and the state is continuously disinvesting in public education, and has been for decades. What do you think are some of the students’ other primary concerns at this time, at this particular university?

WW: The only other concern that I’m aware of is that, even though with a college degree you’re still going to be employed at a much higher rate than without a college degree, nevertheless, students get out [of college] facing an uncertain job market.

Despite grim job prospects, Wiewel stresses the importance of obtaining a college degree. He cites unemployment rates of 22 percent for job seekers with only a high school diploma or GED compared to a much lower (yet still substantial) 8.9 percent unemployment rate for those with a bachelors degree or higher.

WW: So I totally understand that that creates fear and anxiety for people. And combine that with the fact that people have had to borrow money. The average debt of a PSU student (who has debt) is $23,000. Twenty-three thousand dollars is really not a lot of money if you get a reasonable-paying job. And, of course, an average always hides a range. If, for whatever reason, you end up with forty or fifty thousand dollars…now you begin to talk about serious money. And even worse, if you can’t finish, now you have the debt and don’t even have the degree.

My more general point on the whole Occupy movement, Occupy Portland, whatever it is, it has brought the issue of inequality of income and inequality of wealth to the foreground of people’s awareness in a way that nobody else has…I think that you cannot have a functioning democracy when you have gross inequalities of wealth and income. Thomas Jefferson said that; he knew that. A functioning democracy is based on people’s feeling that they have an equal chance, and that can only be sustained if there is some reality that people have an equal chance. That can be, at times, limited. It can be greater or smaller at times, but once people stop believing that, our democracy is in really deep trouble.

So I think the Occupy movement has done a tremendous job in raising that issue for all of us. From my perspective, where I feel just so motivated, is that, I think, education has as much to do with trying to address the problem as anything. It’s not the sole answer. I don’t know how to solve the federal deficit. I don’t know how to solve the mortgage mess. These are, frankly, above my pay scale. I do know I have at least something to say about how we provide education. And I know that, for individuals, education is a key way to actually get those chances and opportunities. And for society as a whole, it makes us more productive, and it will give us more resources and money to address all the kind of problems that especially Occupy Portland points to—everything from homelessness to mortgage defaults. It’s only by having an educated population, and businesses that are innovative, and governments that are efficient, and not-for-profits that are working well, that we can do that.

This is part of the world we live in…We deeply believe in the importance of extracurricular activities as part of what makes a university. It’s not just about what happens in the classroom. Movements like Occupy Portland and Occupy PSU can be great co-educational experiences where people learn the meaning of citizenship, and the meaning of democracy, how you get consensus, how to do conflict mediation. So there are a lot of good things that one can do with it.

1 He’s kind of like George Milton, from Of Mice and Men.

2 Who is? Wim Wiwiel?

1 Yeah. He’s just trying to get ahead, trying to get ahead, and then ends up having to shoot his retarded brother in the back.