The OSU-Tulsa campus is lovely, unless you want to study accounting or English or several other things. TOM GILBERT/Tulsa World
Nearly two years ago, Oklahoma State University-Tulsa asked the state
regents for higher education for permission to 17 new degree programs.
Here's the list:
English
history
sociology
geology
psychology
biological sciences (with pre-med options)
biological sciences (with pre-vet options)
mathematics
physics
chemistry
physical education
secondary education
accounting
economics
civil engineering
construction management
hotel and restaurant administration
Since that request the school has finished up its request for five degree programs: hotel and restaurant management, economics, English, history and sociology.
So far, the regents have approved none of those programs.
The degrees are tied up by two problems: First, and this is no secret,
Langston University has been given monopoly status on some of those programs – including, for example, accounting – in Tulsa County as the result of an out-of-court agreement with the U.S. Justice Department more than 20 years ago. That same Langston monopoly is repeated in the statute that creates OSU-Tulsa. Some of those programs in the Langston monopoly aren't being offered by Langston, but OSU-Tulsa still can't offer the degrees until the deal with the Justice Department is renegotiated. OSU-Tulsa also maintains it could also happen if the statute were changed or the regents interpret it differently.
Second, and this is less public, the state's other institutions of higher education don't want OSU-Tulsa to offer the degrees. It would create a new competitor in the education marketplace (and serve the students of Tulsa County better).
The state regents have taken zero action on the OSU-Tulsa request since it was made.
Tulsa Community College's Tulsa Achieves program (which offers free tuition to graduates of Tulsa County high schools) is creating a large increase in the number of students with their first two years of college in Tulsa. This will predictably increase the number of students looking to complete their bachelor's degrees in Tulsa.
As of 2008, OSU-Tulsa said TCC had 445 students interested in bachelor's degrees in accounting and at least 45 hours of work completed at TCC. There were another 335 TCC students with 45 hours under their belts interested in pursuing economics degrees and 186 looking at psychology degrees.
Until the Langston monopoly problem is resolved and the state regents relent in allowing OSU-Tulsa to pursue these programs, the number of
Tulsa students who head down the Cimmaron Turnpike every morning to get a degree they ought to be able to earn right here in town is going to continue to be too high.
For some students who are tied more closely to Tulsa, it means public higher education in their chosen field is simply out of the question beyond the sophomore level.
