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April 22, 2005
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| The U of M Board of Regents and MnSCU Board of Trustees will be charged with setting specific student tuition rates at their schools. (Photo courtesty of Metro State University - St. Paul) |
St. Paul, Minn. — (AP) The University of Minnesota and the Minnesota State Colleges and Universities system would each get $102 million in new state money the next two years under a bill passed Friday by the House of Representatives.
The House passed the $2.75 billion spending plan 73-60, with a small number of Democrats passing over to join most Republicans to support it. Backers said it's a positive direction for higher education after state cuts to college funding in recent years.
"There has been a steady decline over the years in state support for higher education," said Rep. Bud Nornes, R-Fergus Falls, chairman of the House Higher Education Finance Committee. "The graph has been going down for the state, and up for what students have to pay. This hopefully reverses that and starts to turn it around a little bit for the students."
The U of M Board of Regents and MnSCU Board of Trustees will be charged with setting specific student tuition rates at their schools. Nornes said he knew that there would still be pressure for tuition, but said he thought the funding levels passed by the House would at least allow them to keep increases under 10 percent.
"We're hoping it's as little as possible," Nornes said of tuition increases.
The lead DFLer on the Higher Education Committee said the bill didn't provide enough money to meet those goals, and he predicted that tuition rates would continue to spiral further from students and their families' ability to pay them.
"It perpetuates continued double-digit tuition increases, and it perpetuates an unprecedented, historic collection of debt to students and their families at our institutions," said Rep. Gene Pelowski, DFL-Winona.
Rep. Ron Latz, DFL-St. Louis Park, said it was disingenuous of Republicans to leave room for steep tuition increases while at the same time disavowing tax increases.
"We may spell it T-U-I-T-I-O-N. But to students and their families, it's spelled T-A-X," Latz said. "It's just another tax by a different name."
Also Friday, the Senate Finance Committee approved that body's higher education spending bill. It funds both the U of M and MnSCU at levels higher than proposed by both the House and Gov. Tim Pawlenty.
Stacked up side by side, the Senate is proposing $2.8 billion for higher education, the House is proposing $2.75 billion and Pawlenty, $2.77 billion.
The House bill includes a provision that would divert about $25 million more to higher education if the Legislature approves a casino at the Canterbury Park racetrack in Shakopee.
The Senate's higher education chairwoman, St. Paul DFLer Sandy Pappas, estimated her proposals would give MnSCU officials room to hold tuition increases to about 4 percent a year. The effect on U of M tuition is harder to predict, she said.
Pappas said a full Senate vote on higher education funding is likely next week, after which the two bills would have to be reconciled in a conference committee. She said she hoped to bring the House numbers up a bit, but said she was encouraged at the beginning of a reversal in declining state support for higher education.
"We're getting it," Pappas said. "We're getting that this is the economic engine of the state."
The House bill leaves the State Grant program intact, and increases the maximum tuition, fees and other expenses that can be considered as part of the program. It adds a ninth semester of grant eligibility for students in programs that take longer to complete.
It includes new money for a number of programs, including research in bio-sciences, employee compensation and a human genomics study with the Mayo Clinic for the U of M; and for programs in nursing, farm and small business, and competitive salaries at MnSCU.
The House also fulfilled Pawlenty's request for $3 million in funding to start the process for a new, independent four-year institution in Rochester.
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