Woodstein: In the discussions of Gov. Bobby Jindal’s budget, perhaps none are of greater interest to students than tuition and fee increases. While the budget leaves higher education funding at the same level it’s been, some of that money will come out of students’ pockets if the budget is approved.
Why aren’t students up in arms about this yet? If a pre-filed bill that would remove the tuition cap passes, students taking 18 hours will be paying 150% of the tuition they pay now. Do students not care? Should they? Surely students don’t want to pay more to go to school.
Bernwerd: Teachers cost money. Classrooms cost money. Higher education has facilities, faculty, and students expecting a certain pay or product from their affiliation with their school. So when faced with cuts to state appropriations, options for higher education are slim.
Either cut operations or find more capital … by raising tuition.
Unfortunately for students, it seems the Governor is not willing to raise the capital needed, so increases in tuition are the lesser of the evils. It should not peeve students too greatly, since the largest state school, LSU, is a bargain compared to similar institutions. Quality costs. This cost is clearly not going to come from the taxpayer, so why shouldn’t the direct beneficiaries of this quality pony up the funds?
Woodstein: I don’t know if we should simply assume the state isn’t going to pay for education. There is a growing contingent of legislators challenging Jindal and others that would like to see students paying more for higher education -- they call such maneuvers “taxes on students.”
While that may be a little dramatic, the state does have an interest in keeping funds flowing into higher ed. A better-educated populace is a more affluent populace -- and a more affluent populace pays more in taxes. If you keep increasing costs to students, you begin slowly edging out the number of students that can go to school -- that’s both a short-term loss for universities and a long-term loss for the state.
It’s an even bigger loss for students. It seems to me that, if government is supposed to help build society, there’s no better way for it do so than by providing as cheap an education as practical.
Bernwerd: In a perfect world, your argument would be absolute. But alas this is not a perfect world, it is Jindal’s world. And in Jindal’s world, the state has a massive budget deficit and one of the only pots of money to fix this deficit happens to be higher education. So let us for a moment dwell on reality and consider what is best for the current or soon-to-be college student.
Let us imagine the situation were there a moderate cut to the budgets of our already battered higher education institutions.
There will be blood.
Teachers will be slashed, leading to less course offerings, which will send students ranting on their social media about not getting that class they really needed to graduate. So what is at stake here is a prompt graduation.
I would imagine students would be happy to pay a few hundred extra each year for assurance. Assurance that they would receive a quality degree in a timely manner rather than having to pay for a few extra semesters and miss out on the gains that employment would bring them.
Woodstein: Permanently increasing tuition to fill a temporary budget gap seems like poor long-term planning to me -- especially for present and future students that won’t be able to afford college. But I doubt I’ll convince you either way, so for now let’s just wait and see if the Governor can club his tuition bills through the legislature.
Why aren’t students up in arms about this yet? If a pre-filed bill that would remove the tuition cap passes, students taking 18 hours will be paying 150% of the tuition they pay now. Do students not care? Should they? Surely students don’t want to pay more to go to school.
Bernwerd: Teachers cost money. Classrooms cost money. Higher education has facilities, faculty, and students expecting a certain pay or product from their affiliation with their school. So when faced with cuts to state appropriations, options for higher education are slim.
Either cut operations or find more capital … by raising tuition.
Unfortunately for students, it seems the Governor is not willing to raise the capital needed, so increases in tuition are the lesser of the evils. It should not peeve students too greatly, since the largest state school, LSU, is a bargain compared to similar institutions. Quality costs. This cost is clearly not going to come from the taxpayer, so why shouldn’t the direct beneficiaries of this quality pony up the funds?
Woodstein: I don’t know if we should simply assume the state isn’t going to pay for education. There is a growing contingent of legislators challenging Jindal and others that would like to see students paying more for higher education -- they call such maneuvers “taxes on students.”
While that may be a little dramatic, the state does have an interest in keeping funds flowing into higher ed. A better-educated populace is a more affluent populace -- and a more affluent populace pays more in taxes. If you keep increasing costs to students, you begin slowly edging out the number of students that can go to school -- that’s both a short-term loss for universities and a long-term loss for the state.
It’s an even bigger loss for students. It seems to me that, if government is supposed to help build society, there’s no better way for it do so than by providing as cheap an education as practical.
Bernwerd: In a perfect world, your argument would be absolute. But alas this is not a perfect world, it is Jindal’s world. And in Jindal’s world, the state has a massive budget deficit and one of the only pots of money to fix this deficit happens to be higher education. So let us for a moment dwell on reality and consider what is best for the current or soon-to-be college student.
Let us imagine the situation were there a moderate cut to the budgets of our already battered higher education institutions.
There will be blood.
Teachers will be slashed, leading to less course offerings, which will send students ranting on their social media about not getting that class they really needed to graduate. So what is at stake here is a prompt graduation.
I would imagine students would be happy to pay a few hundred extra each year for assurance. Assurance that they would receive a quality degree in a timely manner rather than having to pay for a few extra semesters and miss out on the gains that employment would bring them.
Woodstein: Permanently increasing tuition to fill a temporary budget gap seems like poor long-term planning to me -- especially for present and future students that won’t be able to afford college. But I doubt I’ll convince you either way, so for now let’s just wait and see if the Governor can club his tuition bills through the legislature.
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