Um... okay-- this IS my state.

Understand that there are two Oregons.

1. Urban, well-educated, highly compensated OR-- the Willamette Valley residents of the Silicon Forest, and...

2. Mostly rural people who have low incomes (<35K) and often as not, lack completed college education themselves, and find the entire PROCESS of sending a child to college to be a daunting one.


Three, really-- there is also a minority Oregon that is both rural (Hispanic) and urban (more African-American and Asian) that is underemployed or unemployed and poorly educated.

We also have a HUGE drug (meth) problem that is related to some of these same groups, and nowhere to really "rehabilitate" those people in terms of lifestyle, so the LE/corrections system just keeps recycling them. Mental health services are also SEVERELY limited here-- even if you can pay, you can't find a practitioner to help you, and if you cannot pay, forget even trying.


We lack a lot of private colleges and universities, and our "system" is well over capacity already in the conventional Uni/4y sense. There is the additional problem that the state government is currently not ABLE to fully fund even that part of the system. There is also an idea on the table to create a "pay-it-forward" tuition-free option (or mandate? it isn't yet clear) for THAT part of the higher ed system in order to provide a meritocratic system that has a chance of sustaining itself on something other than non-resident tuition rates (as Washington has apparently chosen to do, meaning that most of THEIR students who are most deserving can no longer even get seats at UW, at any price). Also understand that politically, OR is hard-core progressive, and it's in the DNA here. Nothing here breaks purely along conventional party lines-- so this COULD probably really work here, of all places, because it may get bipartisan support.

Anyhow, that's the other part of the backstory here.

The other bit of this is that in the years since 2000 here there has been deeply entrenched unemployment and underemployment. While MOST of the country experienced a nice recovery from the dot.com bust, only to fall back into recession in 2008, that really didn't happen here-- if anything, that merely serves to have insulated us from the very worst of the real estate bubble, I suppose. But on a less happy note, it means that there are a LOT LOT LOT of unemployed adults who have few job skills that are marketable in any way that promotes even subsistence living, and well, when you look at it that way, free job-retraining vis a vis the community college system (which already exists, in terms of "infrastructure") seems like a MIGHTILY good idea to me as a taxpayer. Hass is absolutely presenting the unvarnished reality there-- it really isn't hyperbole to ask "which is more expensive? Social services for the indigent long-term? Or education and support for the short-term?" Not here.

At least then those people are not a drain on public resources (and food banks, independent non-profit charities, etc), and they can start PAYING taxes again instead of just being beneficiaries for a lifetime, and perpetuating the same un-virtuous cycle in their own kids.


Schrödinger's cat walks into a bar. And doesn't.