In the interest of full disclosure, I’m here to say that I have a personal stake in the outcome of the tuition-
increase debate raging in Colorado this summer.
My daughter is returning to the University of Colorado this fall, so the proposed hike of up to 28 percent is not just idle chat around our house. The vacation fund is hanging in the balance.
So as the same political leaders who slashed higher education budgets and created this mess shamelessly grandstand about keeping higher ed affordable, I called Barbara Bintliff for a reality check.
Do you really need that much money?
Or are students and their parents getting fleeced?
Bintliff tried to be patient with me.
The professor at the CU School of Law and chairwoman of the Boulder Faculty Assembly has been in the unenviable position of dealing with the Ward Churchill fiasco for the past several months.
Never mind that other Faculty Assembly members are National Science Foundation scholars who choose to teach undergraduates just for the love of it, they all get tarred with the same brush when someone behaves badly.
It’s a convenient excuse for opposing tuition hikes.
“I can’t tell you how demoralizing it is,” she said.
But she wants Coloradans to know that after a decade of state budget cuts, the tuition increases are critically important.
The library at CU is in real trouble, she said.
“It’s gravely understaffed, the acquisitions budget has been cut and cut and cut, and we’re hard-pressed to meet the needs of the faculty and the students with what’s left,” she said.
It’s not easy to be on the cutting edge with 10-year-old data.
In addition, classes are larger and fewer sections are offered. Fewer student advisers are available, which means that students have trouble getting the help they need to get into required courses and undergraduates end up going an extra semester or two to get their degrees.
It’s not much of a bargain.
“The truth of the matter is that CU’s tuition has always been low” relative to comparable institutions, she said.
So, shocking as a 28 percent increase at CU or a 15 percent increase at Colorado State University sounds, tuition here is still a bargain compared with what in- state students pay to attend the research universities at Nebraska, Ohio State, Missouri, Iowa, Michigan and elsewhere.
House Speaker Andrew Romanoff, D-Denver, said those comparisons have been very helpful.
“Clearly, you get what you pay for,” he said.
Colorado ranks 49th in the nation in taxpayer support of higher education, which means we face either tuition increases or fewer state universities.
Take your pick.
And keep in mind that when colleges disappear, so do businesses that depend on them to train workers and deliver technical innovation.
Romanoff said he has been traveling the state talking to voters about the budget situation and has found great concern about this, especially in towns where smaller colleges are located.
“Face it, CU is going to survive no matter what,” he said.
Even if CU can’t make it under the limits imposed by the state and ultimately is privatized, he said, it will survive.
“But for places like Adams State and the community colleges, those options aren’t available,” he said, “and they’re the economic lifeblood of those communities.” State support is essential for their survival. “They can’t jack up tuition indefinitely.”
And the fact that higher education in Colorado is reduced to mere survival is pathetic.
“It’s humbling and sobering that here in Colorado, higher education is stuck at the waterline,” Romanoff said. “We don’t lift our sights much higher than that, and we’re capable of so much more.”
Or are we?
Maybe the future belongs to Nebraska.
If that’s the case, Bintliff won’t be the only one feeling demoralized.
Diane Carman’s column appears Sunday, Tuesday and Thursday. She can be reached at 303-820-1489 or dcarman@denverpost.com.
