BY MEGAN HENRY
Ohio Gov. Mike DeWine’s two-year state budget proposal seeks to get more high school students to stay in Ohio for college through increased scholarship funding. But overall funding for the Ohio Department of Higher Education dips in the second year of his plan.
The proposed budget would give ODHE $3.16 billion in fiscal year 2026 and $3.04 billion in fiscal year 2027.
Steve Mockabee, president of the University of Cincinnati’s American Association of University Professors chapter, was disappointed to see ODHE funding decrease during the second year of the proposed budget.
“Public education provides a good return on investment,” he said. “It feels like a missed opportunity for the state to be decreasing its investment in higher ed.”
The governor’s total state budget is $218 billion. Lawmakers are now tasked with working on a budget to send back to DeWine, which he must sign by July 1.
DeWine’s budget would continue the Governor’s Merit Scholarship, which gives the top 5% of each high school graduating class a $5,000 scholarship each year to go to an Ohio college or university.
“This scholarship will continue to encourage Ohio’s best and brightest students to stay in the state of Ohio and go to college,” DeWine said during Monday’s press conference where he unveiled the budget. “These kids will much more likely then stay in Ohio, get a job in Ohio, be Ohio citizens and be productive members of society.”
The Governor’s Merit Scholarship was enacted through the last state budget two years ago. Ohio’s high school graduating class of 2024 included 6,250 eligible students and about 76% of them accepted the scholarship, DeWine said.
“Normally, we’d expect that number to be about 60%,” DeWine said. “That means, thanks to the merit scholarship, almost 1,000 more of our top students are now going to college in the state of Ohio, and we would expect that to continue year after year.”
The Governor’s Merit Scholarship is estimated to cost $22.7 million for fiscal year 2025. It would cost $47 million for fiscal year 2026 and $70 million for fiscal year 2027, according to the governor’s proposed budget.
“It’s always a positive thing, in my mind, when there are more resources available for students to have access to higher education,” Mockabee said.
Funding for the Ohio College Opportunity Grant is included in the budget, which gives financial support to students who have the highest level of financial need, but funding for it would decrease in the budget’s second year.
The estimated cost for OCOG this fiscal year is $197.3 million and it would cost $220.6 million for fiscal year 2026 and $207.4 for fiscal year 2027, according to the governor’s proposed budget.
“We remain focused on making college more affordable for all students,” DeWine said, but didn’t explain the reason for the decreased funding in the second year.
The State Share of Instruction (SSI), an allocation formula based on student outcome, only saw a recommended 0.1% increase for fiscal year 2026 and no change for fiscal year 2027 — for a total of $2.12 billion, according to the proposed budget.
“That’s the primary funding mechanism, and it’s disappointing that it would be flat, given that inflation has certainly not been flat over the last couple of years,” Mockabee said. “In real terms, it’s a cut because inflation has eaten away at the value of those dollars.”
DeWine’s budget proposal would also add an additional factor to determine how much state funding colleges receive: how many graduates are getting jobs. Currently, the funding that colleges receive from the SSI is determined by how many students are completing courses, certificates, and degrees.
“That will become one of the factors,” DeWine said. “Our budget does exactly that, making Ohio the first state, we believe, in the nation to tie a significant portion of funding for colleges and universities to whether their graduates are, in fact, getting jobs.”
DeWine said this is in line with what students and families want.
“They want to know what they’re getting for their money,” he said.
Mockabee is curious to see the specifics of the proposal.
“The devil is often in the details,” he said. “There’s always a potential for unintended consequences with these funding formulas, and I think we’ve seen that in the past, that sometimes they may be well intentioned, but the way that things are actually implemented may not be the best thing for students at some of our institutions.”
Also included in DeWine’s budget is funding for the Choose Ohio First scholarships, which helps students in STEM related fields. The estimated amount for these scholarships for fiscal year 2025 is $32 million. The recommended amount in the budget for fiscal year 2026 is $34 million and $36 million for fiscal year 2027, according to the budget proposal.
Follow Capital Journal Reporter Megan Henry on Bluesky.
