Oklahoma Bottom 10 for business.

[progressiveboy]

This state does not want educated citizens. The oil and gas overloads act threatened by other industry. This boost in education spending is mostly for common education, not higher education, and as Rover points out, only kinda gets us up to par after falling behind.

The lack of college educated citizens is a real drag on getting knowledge jobs here. Stitt thought an empty field near Tulsa would get us Tesla. "Hey, check out this field. It could be yours!"

The State Chamber is at least part of the problem, or was in the past. Obstinately stubborn about setting a lower priority for education in favor of tax incentives that aren't getting any takers.

I am curious on your take as to why the State does not want educated citizens? Do you think it is the State government that is holding us back? Is it the "culture" of the State? It does seem the O & G industry reigns supreme in the State. Personally, the boom and bust mentality is exhausting. I recently moved back to OKC, so I now have a vested interest in seeing our State move forward.

[TheTravellers]

I am curious on your take as to why the State does not want educated citizens? Do you think it is the State government that is holding us back? Is it the "culture" of the State? It does seem the O & G industry reigns supreme in the State. Personally, the boom and bust mentality is exhausting. I recently moved back to OKC, so I now have a vested interest in seeing our State move forward.

It's about money and power on the part of the Republican party. I won't get more into it because it's inherently political, but just do some searching on Republicans and education and you'll find plenty of reading material...

[dhpersonal]

I am curious on your take as to why the State does not want educated citizens? Do you think it is the State government that is holding us back?

While I am open to the argument being true that there is a concerted malicious effort to keep Oklahomans undereducated to allow for corruption within business and politics, I think the likelihood is that Oklahoma is unimpressive because its citizens follow a repeating pattern of electing politicians who see either little value in education or that education is a perceived as a threat to culture that causes educational output in Oklahoma to underperform.

[Bunty]

While I am open to the argument being true that there is a concerted malicious effort to keep Oklahomans undereducated to allow for corruption within business and politics, I think the likelihood is that Oklahoma is unimpressive because its citizens follow a repeating pattern of electing politicians who see either little value in education or that education is a perceived as a threat to culture that causes educational output in Oklahoma to underperform.

Oklahomans in large part are guilty. They proved they don't want to pay higher taxes to support education at the state level when they rejected a proposal in a vote to hike the sales tax by a penny. Apparently, legislators took it as a cue that they don't need to worry much about supporting education. At least at the local level support often comes up for approval for bond issues to build new schools to replace old ones in districts that can afford it.

It too bad how support for higher education in Oklahoma is $200 million less than it was 10 years ago. As a result, tuition is way up and universities have to resort to donations from their wealthy alumni to largely help replace old, outdated buildings with new ones. For instance, the new $100 million agriculture hall is well along in construction at OSU. Surely the situation is much the same at OU: https://www.oklahoman.com/story/news...e/60368255007/

Construction update: https://agdivision.okstate.edu/annou...-the-roof.html