Woodstein: When higher education officials went before the House Committee on Appropriations on Thursday, all of them -- including brand-new Commissioner of Higher Education Jim Purcell -- said they supported Gov. Jindal’s proposal to raise the cap on tuition hours.
It seems to me students should wonder who exactly these administrators are fighting for. Do students really want the faces of higher education saying students should pay more?
Bernward: For once, I think these administrators' logic is fairly solid.
In hard times, waste must be dealt with. The waste being targeted with this proposal is college students who apply for 18 hours of class during a semester only to drop down to the minimum when the going gets a little tough. This leaves empty seats in classrooms untapped productivity and wasted state dollars.
And because tuition is paid at the beginning of the semester, bumping the cap up will make students think twice before dropping out of a class they are paying for. The state wins though expedited — and cheaper — graduation rates. The University gets a little extra cash to make ends meet.
Woodward: Raising the tuition cap only prevents students from dropping classes once they’re already well into the semester. It seems to me the major impact of this proposal will come on the front end.
It seems obvious students will take fewer hours if they have to pay more for those hours. I understand the argument that taking more hours leads to faster graduation, which is a long-term cost saver, but I don’t know that students will see those long-term benefits.
For a lot of people, the money this proposal will cost them is a real incentive to take fewer hours. That leads to reduced profits and, more importantly, a lowering of the state’s already awful graduation rates.
Bernward: I think even you overstate the perceptiveness of Louisiana's best and brightest.
It would be nice to see exactly how much the increase will be, but it seems the governor thoughtfully neglected to file the legislation in time for the legislative committee's higher education inquiries.
But no matter how expensive it will be, I believe it will be largely ignored by students because of TOPS. As I understand, this proposal will be covered by TOPS, so I could see the majority of students simply ignoring the increase as their aid covers it.
Honestly, I see this increase as the lesser of two evils. Everybody always whines that higher education should be run like a business. This proposal is a step toward paying for what you actually get. Instead of other tuition increases which simply raise the rate for everyone.
Woodstein: While it’s TOPS’ers won’t see much hurt from this, the state will, because they’ll have to pay for those TOPS increases. So it seems like chalking up these increases to “self-generated revenues” that won’t cause the state to pay more seems dishonest.
But back to students: what happens to those that don’t have TOPS? They’re going to eat hundreds of dollars in costs a year. And many of those who get TOPS are some of the poorest students attempting college in the first place.
While it’s true that higher education should be as efficient as practical, to reduce higher education policy to the barest business math misses the purpose of why the state is paying for it in the first place: to better educate the citizens of the state. Any policy that cuts out that education ought to be thoroughly debated.
Bernward: It appears we will once again have to agree to disagree.
It seems to me students should wonder who exactly these administrators are fighting for. Do students really want the faces of higher education saying students should pay more?
Bernward: For once, I think these administrators' logic is fairly solid.
In hard times, waste must be dealt with. The waste being targeted with this proposal is college students who apply for 18 hours of class during a semester only to drop down to the minimum when the going gets a little tough. This leaves empty seats in classrooms untapped productivity and wasted state dollars.
And because tuition is paid at the beginning of the semester, bumping the cap up will make students think twice before dropping out of a class they are paying for. The state wins though expedited — and cheaper — graduation rates. The University gets a little extra cash to make ends meet.
Woodward: Raising the tuition cap only prevents students from dropping classes once they’re already well into the semester. It seems to me the major impact of this proposal will come on the front end.
It seems obvious students will take fewer hours if they have to pay more for those hours. I understand the argument that taking more hours leads to faster graduation, which is a long-term cost saver, but I don’t know that students will see those long-term benefits.
For a lot of people, the money this proposal will cost them is a real incentive to take fewer hours. That leads to reduced profits and, more importantly, a lowering of the state’s already awful graduation rates.
Bernward: I think even you overstate the perceptiveness of Louisiana's best and brightest.
It would be nice to see exactly how much the increase will be, but it seems the governor thoughtfully neglected to file the legislation in time for the legislative committee's higher education inquiries.
But no matter how expensive it will be, I believe it will be largely ignored by students because of TOPS. As I understand, this proposal will be covered by TOPS, so I could see the majority of students simply ignoring the increase as their aid covers it.
Honestly, I see this increase as the lesser of two evils. Everybody always whines that higher education should be run like a business. This proposal is a step toward paying for what you actually get. Instead of other tuition increases which simply raise the rate for everyone.
Woodstein: While it’s TOPS’ers won’t see much hurt from this, the state will, because they’ll have to pay for those TOPS increases. So it seems like chalking up these increases to “self-generated revenues” that won’t cause the state to pay more seems dishonest.
But back to students: what happens to those that don’t have TOPS? They’re going to eat hundreds of dollars in costs a year. And many of those who get TOPS are some of the poorest students attempting college in the first place.
While it’s true that higher education should be as efficient as practical, to reduce higher education policy to the barest business math misses the purpose of why the state is paying for it in the first place: to better educate the citizens of the state. Any policy that cuts out that education ought to be thoroughly debated.
Bernward: It appears we will once again have to agree to disagree.
