What I was curious about was the comparative amount of city and state dollars each city gets/puts in for higher education. For a long time it appeared to me that A. Tulsa wasn't allowed to have a publicly funded, graduate university in the city. B. To make up for a lot of it, (while continuing to fund universities in other cities), we also had to dip back into our pockets again to fund TCC and the Vo-Tech system so we could have at least something here. Hence rather than having a large state funded university, we have one of the largest Jr Colleges in this region of the country. And now we have the scattered graduate universities that still aren't really, "real" campuses offering a broad range of programs and with housing and such.
Do the people of OKC spend as much of their tax dollars on higher ed? And whether yes or no, where does that money go?
Yeah, I know this is old, but still had some thoughts...
A. You are right, we weren't allowed that. TU didn't want the competition.
B. And it took stupid time to get TCC going around here. They didn't open that until fall of 1970!! 50 years or more past time when Tulsa should have had public secondary education.
Now we got OSU, and while it would be nice if it were more like the campus in Stillwater, it is still pretty darn good! And yes, Tulsa should have a full campus public university. And not Northeastern State....they are good at what they have, but are not a full university.
TCC and the Vo-Tech system are really exceptional in north east Oklahoma. I went to TJC (predecessor) and have taught there in the past - it is a very good system for the target audience...possibly even great for that target audience! And the classes I have taken at Vo-Tech have done exactly what I feel a vo-tech program is supposed to do - give specialized, focused training to provide the necessary skills for a particular job or career path. One of the best ways around to get a quick introduction through advanced training in a wide variety of skills. Ever thought you might want to paint cars? There's and "app" for that. Welding? There's an app for that. Computer programming? Yep, there's one for that, too. Truck driver? Well, you have to go to Drumright, but GOOD training at very reasonable...no....cheap prices is available on a huge number of topics!
Any and all higher education we get, no matter where it is in the area is a good thing!