2008 Woodie Awards
Bill May Freeze Tuition
by Steve Morris
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Students leave Minnesota State with truckloads of stuff. For many students, one of those trucks loads is bogged down with massive student loans.
On March 10, a bill that would put a freeze on tuition passed through the Senate Higher Education Committee at the state legislature. The committee listened to the personal and financial struggles of four students' plight of paying their college tuition. Their stories were an attempt to persuade the legislators of the damaging effect high tuition can have on students.
According to Democrat Sen. John Hottinger of St. Peter, a couple with $90,000 in school loans gave their story to the committee.
"The committee was very responsive," Hottinger said. "The students gave great stories."
Hottinger is a co-author of the bill that would supplement instructional appropriations in lieu of tuition increases. It calls for $2.7 million in fiscal year 2006 and $42.2 million in fiscal year 2007 to be appropriated from the general fund to the Board of Trustees of the Minnesota State Colleges and Universities.
According to Hottinger, the bill has no other committee to pass through. It will stay in the Senate Higher Education Committee, where the funding will be put together. He hopes by the middle of May he will know if the bill received funding.
"I am confident of this," Hottinger said. "The higher education committee, once given its target, will do everything it can to increase funding for the MnSCU system."
At MSU, tuition has increased by 30 percent the last two years. According to the Dean Trauger, Vice President of Finance and Administration at MSU, part of the reason for the increase is because MSU is getting less money from state appropriations.
"We have a decline in state appropriations by about 4 or 5 million [dollars]," Trauger said.
Fred Slocum, an associate professor of the political science department, sees a correlation between the rise in tuition and choices legislators have made. The rising tuition is a direct consequence of policy decisions, Slocum said. Legislatures have been forced to balance the budget without raising taxes. According to Slocum, many states, including Minnesota, are required to have a balanced budget.
"If you insist on balancing the state budget without raising taxes, then that means spending has to be cut," Slocum said.
"Gov. Pawlenty has been remarkably rigid, not raising taxes no matter what the cause."
Slocum said Pawlenty's policy of no new taxes is not the sole reason for raising tuitions, but it is certainly a large factor. As a result, Slocum explained, people attending college are financially burdened.
"Students and their families have been absolutely hammered in the last four years," he said.
Hottinger says he can't understand why funding of higher education is being cut. He feels it's an obligation of the government and society to help ease the way for students to attend college.
"It doesn't make any sense to me," Hottinger said. "The investment of the state into higher education is returned many fold."
Trauger, who is also an alumnus of MSU, says he is concerned that raising tuition may keep people from attending college.
"It's a big concern about what that might do to student access," Trauger said.
In the 1980s, Minnesota taxpayers paid 80 percent of each student's tuition to attend a public university in the state. Now, they pay 45 percent.
"There has been some shifting of responsibility for paying for higher education," said Trauger. "We want to keep education affordable."
Steve Morris is a Reporter staff writer