Whereas the Oregon High School Graduating Class of 2010 will be the largest in Oregon History.

Whereas the requests for the Oregon Opportunity Grant have outstripped current funds allocated for 2009/2010 and requests for 2010/2011 are already far ahead of requests at this time last year.

Whereas enrollment in Oregon higher education institutions has increased greatly and is expected to increase further by 2025, state funding has not increased proportionally and in fact has decreased.

Whereas we will be unable to achieve the 40-40-20 goal by 2025. It is clear that the state of Oregon is unable under current funding and structural constraints to meet the higher education needs of Oregon citizens today nor plan effectively to meet the needs of future Oregon students.

Any efforts to resolve these issues must be consistent with the following core principles.

• a) Any restructuring of Public Higher Education must improve the education of all Oregon Students.
• b) Any restructuring of Public Higher Education must be based on a careful examination of other reorganization attempts such as what happened to the academic programs at OHSU.
• c) Any restructuring plans of Public Higher Education must strengthen the values that these individual Public Institutions bring to Oregon.
• d) The faculty in general and the IFS in particular must be involved every step of the way.
• e) Public Higher Education Institutions in Oregon should function collaboratively as a unified system for the benefit of Oregon.