We've been working for a while on a way to save higher education in Colorado. It's a complicated process and it's hard to explain in a news story. That's apparent by the comments after the article.
Presidents want say on setting tuition
By Berny Morson, Rocky Mountain News (Contact)
Published January 16, 2009 at 9:12 p.m.
College students could see deep changes in the way tuition is formulated as a result of the looming budget cuts announced Friday, some key lawmakers believe.
A new strategy would mean higher tuition for some students to offset the budget cuts. But some of the additional money would go to financial aid to keep college affordable for disadvantaged students.
Trying to keep tuition down while repeatedly chopping state aid to the schools can only erode the quality of education, Rep. Jack Pommer, D- Boulder, vice chairman of the Joint Budget Committee, said Friday.
"We're essentially consuming these universities," Pommer said of the state's four research institutions.
He added: "We can probably get another 20 years out of them before they're essentially worthless."
Higher education must cut $30 million from the budget for the current school year, with more proposed cuts to be released next Friday.
Higher education was slashed during the last recession, at the beginning of this decade. Funding still has not climbed back to 2002 levels when amounts are adjusted for inflation, according to the governor's budget office.
For years, Colorado's college presidents have been seeking more management flexibility, including more leeway in setting tuition, which is capped annually in the state spending bill. Lawmakers, including budget committee members such as Pommer, have been saying for several weeks that they're open to more flexibility for the colleges.
University of Colorado President Bruce Benson said Friday, "Give us some freedom. We will be responsible. We will be accountable, and we will damn sure keep it affordable for our citizens."
CU will absorb nearly $8 million of the $30 million cut to higher education, under the proposal that went from the governor's office to the budget committee Friday.
Benson said CU started looking at savings last March, when businesses began reporting financial problems. Some CU jobs have gone unfilled since last summer.
Gov. Bill Ritter said he's not ready to endorse a flexibility plan until he sees details.
Even the $30 million cut protects most of the gains that have been made in higher education funding over the last two years, Ritter said.
College tuition increased 9 percent this year at the state's four research schools - CU, Colorado State University, University of Northern Colorado and the Colorado School of Mines. Other four-year schools and community colleges saw lesser increases.
Budget committee members, who draft the annual state spending bill, had been looking at similar increases for next year.
windbourne writes:
If you dems ARE going to cut their budget, then give them freedom to figure things out.
farsidefan writes:
Windbourne,
Why should the Dems do that when the Repubs never did it when they slashed Higher Ed budgets the last 15 years ?
SL10 writes:
Voting NO to the amendments hurt Colorado.
Hey, the people of Colorado had a chance to vote for a change to improve school funding.
But, now this is the price of stupidity at the polls.
Enjoy higher price schools all.
freefall writes:
I moved here for the great affordable schools and would love to stay here. But the rate hikes are above and beyond other states so I am looking at transferring. Hell, there's even a couple of schools I could go to that out of state (tuition) would be lower than Colorado's in- state and get the same respect.
This is just plain wrong. The in-state tuition at CU and CSU are about average for similar schools around the country. We've had some significant increases in tuition, but so have a lot of other state Universities. Out-of-state tuition is certainly high, but we can't subsidize students who aren't from Colorado.
Sundog writes:
Yep, just keep jacking up the tuition to close the shortfall. Surely $30k isn't too much for one semester. After graduation they can quickly jump to assistant manager at Sonic...if anyone can still afford a hamburger by then.
Mile_Hi_Dave writes:
Hmmmmmmmmmm...didn't all the casino towns just vote to raise the limts and stay open longer? Doesn't that mean more revenue for those towns? Even if it increases the taxes only by 50%, I am sure, with a 2000% increase in the limits, I am being conservative using 50% as the value for the increase in tax revenue generated up there. Back to my point...why not use this money to increase, not decrease educational spending? Obviously, these towns of less than 200 people can't use all that revenue, at least not for the purposes they are supposed to....Heck, in a town of 110 people, the board is running out of ways to spend those tax dollars, so they are fixing up their own homes, LOL, and illegally moving money for services that are not provided for by their agreement for the use of these tax $$. I see no reason to be buying doggie doors when a student can't go to school because of a lack of funds! Just my 2 cents...
This is a good idea. Unfortunately, the casino can do pretty much anything they want. They authorized themselves by sponsoring an amendment to the state constitution. Last November, they ran another amendment to increase the amounts people can bet and to increase the hours that they're open. The proposal went right to the voters who approved it.
The legislature can't change the constitution, so we don't have much control over the tax revenue the casinos generate. Their latest change to the constitution directs some of the tax revenue to community colleges. That's good for them, but it doesn't help the rest of higher education. And it's not going to make the community colleges rich. Since casinos in Colorado write their own laws, they keep a lot of the money for themselves.
classiccoupe writes:
Where are our values? Certainly not in education! Like everything else, one has to wonder where all the money involved is really going. Could there be greed and special interests involved? No wonder America is losing its academic standing in the world. As in the past, the nations with the most knowledge and wisdom will ultimately come out on top. It appears as though this nation is now on a losing path.
You don't have to wonder, you can just look through the budget.
mytwosense writes:
This is one reason why I voted against the amendment that, in theory, was supposed to raise gambling funds so that part of them could be diverted to education. I knew it was just going to remain a theory!
The casinos wrote the amendment and the money will go exactly where they wanted it to go.
farmboy writes:
Remember Referendum C? Money from that was supposed to fund colleges and universities.
What happened to it?
Even some college presidents have asked this question. Those of us who campaigned for Referendum C said it would raise enough revenue to keep the state from having to close the colleges and universities in 2006. It did. We tried to be clear about that. Referendum C kept us from having to make even more cuts to the budget, it didn't restore all of the money lost during the 1999 and 2000 tax cuts and the recession that followed.
Salchak_Toka writes:
Desperate times call for desperate measures, and if Colorado won't support higher education (and yes, when all is said and onde, it WILL NOT support higher education), then it could at least craft an orderly dissolution of several state institutions in order to strengthen the rest.
One four-year campus on the Western Slopes is plenty; one campus south of Denver; one campus in Denver; CU-Boulder, CSU, and Mines. That's it; even that's probably too many.
Mesa State and Western State? Get rid of one, and merge its resources (and as much of its personnel as feasible) into the other. The result is one possibly viable campus instead of two on life support. Get rid of UNC; move its portable assets and best personnel to CSU. You get the idea. Some consolidation of the community colleges might be worthwhile too, but since they're funded differently, this probably can't be accomplished by some kind of statewide plan.
Some folks will be hurt, but if we just wait for all the universities to wither and collapse, everyone will be hurt.
Only problem with this scenario is that it requires some courage on the part of our "leaders." These are the last people to demonstrate courage. Too many legislators sitting in districts with colleges in them, and nobody wants to be the guy who sacrificed his college for the greater good. As a result, most of the colleges will fail.
Touche
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