The legislature’s Joint Budget Committee on Tuesday rejected separate plans by the University of Colorado and Gov. Bill Owens’ staff to reduce CU’s tuition increase for in-state students and asked them to get together and come up with a compromise.
The JBC was supposed to consider cutting CU’s legislature- authorized tuition increase of $43.5 million by $13.8 million, at the request of Owens, but committee members did not act on that.
Committee members also did not unanimously endorse a CU proposal that would have ensured tuition increases no greater than 15 percent for students whose families have incomes of $80,000 a year or less.
Rick O’Donnell, executive director of the Colorado Commission on Higher Education, blasted CU’s proposal, saying it will treat students differently depending on their parents’ income.
The JBC’s chairman, Sen. Abel Tapia, D-Pueblo, directed both sides back into negotiations.
“I don’t want either of those,” Tapia said, receiving concurrence from the five other members of the JBC. “I would like the regents to look at this issue again.”
Tapia directed JBC staff to send CU a letter, saying the spending-authority reduction is not beneficial but that a nearly 28 percent tuition increase is too high.
The letter will give CU and the CCHE until July 6 to negotiate a compromise or come back to the JBC for a possible unspecified action.
Sean Duffy, Owens’ deputy chief of staff, applauded the JBC move, while CU officials were at a loss about what to do next.
“It’s a big win for the governor,” Duffy said after the meeting.
O’Donnell said he would like to see roughly 11 percent increases for in-state and out-of-state students with the possibility of slightly higher increases for high- cost programs such as the business school or engineering. CU officials maintain that double-digit increases for out-of-state students, who already pay more than three times that of in-state students, would drive those people to other schools, resulting in lost revenue.
CU president Betsy Hoffman said the university would need a few days to figure out its next move.
“We have to see the letter,” she said. “I don’t know what the next step will be.”
Tuesday’s two-hour JBC session turned contentious – with Republicans attacking CU for raising rates on in-state students by 28 percent, while Democrats, who are a majority, questioned whether the state should be interfering with independently elected regents.
Sen. Dave Owen, R-Greeley, echoing the governor’s concern, said it wasn’t fair to have some middle-class students whose parents make $81,000 a year pay 28 percent more while students whose parents make $79,000 pay 15 percent more.
“You’re not being fair to the middle-class parents of Colorado with this hocus-pocus,” he said.
Hoffman countered that CU already provides financial aid based on income and this would just extend it to all 12,000 students whose parents make less than $80,000.
The $4.5 million it would take to cut the tuition increase for middle-class students would be taken out of CU’s existing budget or through private fundraising.
Sen. Moe Keller, D-Wheat Ridge, questioned why Colorado State University raised tuition by 15 percent and the governor did not oppose it.
O’Donnell said that CSU received much smaller tuition increases in previous years and received prior approval to raise tuition next year by 15 percent.
Regents told legislators that they understand the state’s concern, but they decided the tuition increase was the only way to keep CU as a top school.
“We’re unhappy about the tuition increase as well as the governor, but our top priority is to provide a quality education for students in Colorado,” said Regent Pat Hayes.
Late Tuesday, Owens sent the regents a letter offering to meet Thursday, Friday or June 29 to discuss a compromise.
Staff writer Arthur Kane can be reached at 303-820-1626 or akane@denverpost.com.
