Tuition Caps May Go Away

Lawmakers Look For Higher Ed Alternatives

Steve Saunders, 7NEWS Anchor

DENVER -- Some Colorado lawmakers say it's time to scrap the formula for funding higher education and get rid of the caps on tuition. As an alternative, the state would provide more financial aid to needy students.

Members of the Joint Budget Committee briefed members of the Education Committee Thursday on how budget cuts are impacting higher education. The state is facing a $600 million shortfall. "The question becomes, do we hang on to them (colleges) and choke them until they are dead or do we look for an alternative?" asked Rep. Jack Pommer of Boulder.

He added, "We don't have any money." Currently, the state caps tuition increases at the major universities at 9 percent.

It would be a drastic change and some say a mistake.

Rep. Karen Middleton of Arapahoe County told lawmakers, "I wouldn't throw the whole thing out. I would be very cautious."

Throw what whole thing out? What we're suggesting is a funding system used in other states that lets tuition rise, but uses financial aid to make it affordable for everyone.

Under the plan, the state's three research universities -- CU, CSU and Mines, would accept every Colorado student who met the academic standards, regardless of ability to pay. The state and the universities would guarantee that every student accepted could go with some state contribution, financial aid and reasonable amounts of family contribution and/or debt.

The alternative is continuing the current trajectory of slowly eroding the quality of the schools while making them unaffordable for lots of Coloradans.

CU, as an example, was just about to get back to it's 2001 level of state support. It would have reached it this year, but instead of increasing the school's funding, we're cutting it.