5:00
Campus Press reporter Alex Reiner is live at UCSU’s Tuition Forum titled “Higher Education: Where did we go wrong? How to move forward?” Up to the minute updates on what officials and students are saying about higher education in Colorado.
5:30
UCSU Tri-Executive Hadley Brown introduced panelists Senator Joshua Penry (R-Grand Junction), Senator Ron Tupa (D-Boulder), Director of the Colorado Commission on Higher Education David Skaggs, CU Regent Cindy Carlisle, CU Associate Vice Chancellor of Finance Steve McNally, and Chad Marturano, an analyst from the State Office of Planning and Budgeting.
“All of this came very unexpectedly but very happily when I was asked to start up the CCHE,” said Congressman Skaggs.
5:38
A few panelists said they could relate to students who are facing financial troubles.
“I really identify with the concerns that you all have in this room,” Regent Carlisle said.
“I’m still in the process of paying student loans so I know first hand what you are all going through,” Senator Penry said.
5:41
Senator Tupa discussed the reasons behind the current raise in tuition costs.
“With the economic downturn we have something called the TABOR Amendment,” he said. “That really impacted the state budget. That’s really the reason we have been seeing the huge increases in tuition.”
5:47
Senator Tupa explained the Taber Amendment further. “It says that the state budget can only grow by a certain amount each year. Amendment 23 In a nutshell, you have some money that has to go to higher education and some that has to go to k-12 schools. The biggest budget that is not protected in this formula is higher education.”
“Higher education is unfortunately what is left (out) of the Taber act,” Senator Penry said.
6:03
According to Congressman Skaggs, CU-Boulder is about $750 million behind similar peer institutions in other states.
“We’ve seen other schools who can pay more to our faculty,” Skaggs said. “You can’t get by on the cheap.”
When asked to describe the current state of funding and how it impacts the attraction of students, Regent Carlisle cited overcrowding in the classroom and overworked staff.
The number of students on average related to our tenure professors has increased, McNally said.
“The real problem is you are going to go to college no matter the cost and we understand that,” Senator Tupa said.
Congressman Skaggs said Colorado legislature will start expecting a greater portion of revenue for CU, CSU, and Mines.
6:16
Senator Penry discussed effects the current economy has had on tuition costs.
“All of this is contingent on the fact that our economy continues to grow,” he said. “There are conversations about gaming (and) privatizing the lottery. We need to find a way to protect higher education for the next recession.”
“It certainly could be at a crisis level when the next (recession) hits,” Senator Tupa said.
Regent Carlisle put the problems of the economy into a bigger perspective.
“It’s not just about tuition but about the economy of the state,” Carlisle said. “The students across the state worked really hard; I think we owe a real debt to the lobbying students down at the capital.”
“The Colorado economy compared the national economy is better,” Congressman Skaggs said. “This is a problem for us because Senator Penry and Senator Tupa do not have the power to do what the US Constitution intends for them to do-to determine how much to raise in taxes and how to support those (raises in taxes).”
6:24
Regent Carlisle said the University had no choice but to raise the tuition.
“Unless we raise tuition, the institution doesn’t go forward,” Carlisle said. “In the long run there is nothing we can do.”
Although Senator Penry said he agreed that tuition is going up and it is a very real national phenomenon, he also said, “We need to make sure that savings are passed on to students.”
According to McNally, CU has an educational budget of $459 million; $79.4 million comes from the state (17 percent) and the rest comes from students.
“We are very tuition reliant; probably more than any other institution in the US,” McNally said.
He added that as CU is trying to maintain those costs, they are forced to pass those costs on to students via tuition increases.
6:36
Senator Penry said on raising tuition costs, “We need to figure out how to prevent future initiatives from making it worse.”
Marturano added that Governor knows this is a priority and that the governor’s office is open to those ideas and wants to have those conversations.
“We were 49th in the nation for higher education funding,” Senator Tupa said. “This is a lean, mean, frugal state because we have had some conservative legislature. The issue here is higher (education) not getting the funding so students pick up the rest.”
When asked why it was important that the state’s higher education institutions thrive, Congressman Skaggs said, “The future of the economy rests on a skilled workforce. Over 100,000 people in Colorado are employed in the higher education enterprise. The business community is our main ally in promoting the state population’s health.”
Senator Tupa said students and parents should start to take more active roles in the campaign to lower tuition rates.
“I don’t get enough e-mails from students on this issue; I don’t get enough e-mails from your parents on this issue,” Tupa said. “This system of democracy works perfectly when everyone does their part.”
7:00
The forum has moved into a question-and-answer session.
When asked whether or not she favored a cap on tuition, Regent Carlisle said, “I would not favor a cap on tuition because money has been cut from the state level and we cannot do anything to augment technologies. You want the best education you can get.”
Congressman Skaggs addressed a question on supporting CU grad students and their tuition concerns. He said although producing graduate-level degrees will pay off economically the state does not have enough funds to give as much help to graduate students that is given to undergraduate students.
“We simply don’t have the capacity to do very much about this at the state level,” Skaggs said. “The use of limited state funds has been used to open opportunities for undergraduates in many other parts of Colorado, i.e. getting students to attend community college.”
7:15
Senators Penry and Tupa discussed ways for the state to fund tuition.
“We need an alternative source of funding that will not be affected by economic fluxes,” Penry said.
“Transportation tolling is one of the things we need to put on the table,” Tupa said.
When asked what effect CU’s transition to a private enterprise had on funding, Carlisle said, “the state support has not gone above 10 percent since the transition after it was intended to increase flexibility in funding.”
“Unfortunately, the burden has once again fallen on the students,” McNally said.
At the end of the forum, UCSU Co-Director of Legislative Affairs Jesse Jensen said, “The big thing about coming here tonight is this is a big issue. We need to get it out to the media, to the general public, that this is hurting us. This is an issue that has to go to the voters at some time; the legislators’ hands are tied.”
