Throw a lifesaver to higher ed

Tribune Opinion
May 1, 2008

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Higher education is in a tough spot. Expenses are up and state funding is down. It's understandable when tuition is bumped up every year. The University of Colorado regents recently hiked tuition 9.3 percent for the 2008-2009 school year for undergraduates at its Boulder campus. Colorado State University is thinking about increasing its tuition by 9.5 percent next year. At the University of Northern Colorado, officials have not publicly discussed tuition rates yet, but they may address the issue this month. Last year, UNC's tuition increased a substantial 9.9 percent.

These frequent tuition boosts are now putting the students -- and the communities they serve -- in a tough spot as well. At what point are we outpricing our own students and pushing our state schools into the elite category of higher education institutions?

It's time to make the dream of higher education an affordable reality.

For starters, we need to rethink two key components of our state constitution that have impacted state funding of higher education in recent years. The 1992 Taxpayers' Bill of Rights limits government spending and tax increases and requires tax refunds in flush years. On the flipside, Amendment 23 mandates a 1 percent annual increase in funding of K-12 schools on top of inflation adjustments.

As a result of these two conflicting amendments -- one essentially limiting government growth and the other mandating that it grow -- higher education has been shortchanged. Add in the fluctuations of an economy, and the problem grows even bigger.

As House Speaker Andrew Romanoff put it in a phone interview last week, if inflation spikes and the constitution tells us we have to keep up with inflation no matter what happens to the rest of the budget, we quickly cannibalize everything else just to keep up with K-12. "All of these formulas create a foreseeable mess," he said.

Tuesday, Romanoff pitched a plan to the House State, Veterans and Military Affairs Committee to address the problem three ways:

» Invest dollars collected over the TABOR limit in the future and put them into the state education fund. The law requires that the excess is refunded to taxpayers in good economic times, although that hasn't happened in years.

»Repeal Amendment 23's requirement to increase education spending.

»Create a new protected savings account just for education and require a two-thirds vote of the House and Senate to use the funds.

After postponing the issue Wednesday, the committee is expected to vote today whether to send the proposal to the House and Senate. If approved before the session ends, it would appear on November's ballot. There are several other measures before the Legislature that could help higher ed as well.

The committee should pass the proposal through today so it has a chance at reaching the voters. This is the closest thing we have so far to a good solution, and it deserves to be explored.