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Monday, March 15, 2010

The Tuition Time Bomb

by Brian Thevenot
January 18, 2010  |  1

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Even with the next legislative session a year away, state Rep. Dan Branch, chair of the Higher Education Committee, has been visiting college presidents, delivering a frank warning: Texas families can’t take any more big tuition hikes, and neither can the cash-strapped state bail out bulging college budgets.

Since 2003, when the Legislature deregulated tuition by allowing individual boards of regents to set prices for each school, tuition and fees at four-year state schools has skyrocketed by an average of 63 percent, from $1,934 per semester to $3,150 according to the last state figures, from 2008. At ...

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Comments (1)

  • itallfits wrote on 1/19/2010 1:40 p.m.

    Why is Tier One identified as "an inflation-driver"? The constitutional amendment that passed in November opens up a fund that wasn't being used to do anything for use by these 7 instituions, if and when they meet certain benchmarks. How does that drive inflation? To whom does the writer attribute this "inflation-driver" statement? Texas public universities--the good ones, anyway--are an incredible bargain. Three of the publics are on the national "best value" list kiplingers' puts out.Texas higher ed is structurally underfunded. Texas spends nothing like what California does in direct funding of higher ed institions. Their tuition is not significantly higher than Texas' public universities, and the quality of what they offer is significantly better. Neither is perfect, but comparing the two indicates a lack of understanding or information. Kind of glib. Without those looming print deadlines, I expect so much more of you, TT.