Call it compassion versus convolution. Call it charity versus business. Call it thinking versus overthinking.
Whatever you call it, the reactions of Colorado State University and the University of Colorado to Hurricane Katrina victims are as different as the images the two institutions have developed.
CSU, the putative “agriculture school” because of its land-grant status, made things straight as a row plowed in a farmer’s field. Any student enrolling from a Gulf Coast college closed by Katrina will pay no more for tuition than a Coloradan.
CU, the so-called “flagship” school because of its presumed intellectual horsepower, came up with a system as hard to explain as its recently proposed 28 percent tuition increase.
CU will consider each of Katrina’s victims on his or her ability to pay the school’s out-of-state tuition, said university president Hank Brown. There is no guarantee they will get any help with the $20,000 bill.
“It’ll be based on need rather than on some broad category,” Brown said.
Students who lost their ability to pay for college because of Katrina’s destruction will get help, said Ric Porreca, CU-Boulder’s vice chancellor for budget and finance. Some may end up with what are essentially full scholarships.
There will be plenty of help with late registration and academic counseling.
Students already attending CU who are from Katrina-battered areas will get aid.
“There isn’t going to be anybody with need who’s going to be left out,” Brown said.
But students who had to change schools because of Katrina and still have the ability to pay CU’s out-of- state tuition will owe that amount.
In-state tuition and state general fund contributions per full-time student cover only half the cost of instruction on the Boulder campus, Brown said.
So out-of-staters who don’t need in-state tuition won’t get it.
They will, however, get extra time to pay their 20 grand.
Their bills also might be adjusted down if CU determines that students with the ability to pay already paid money to Gulf Coast colleges that will not be refunded.
“We still have the flexibility to change what we charge these students,” Porreca said.
See where this is going?
If not, you’ve identified the problem.
At CSU, provost Tony Frank boiled down the tuition subsidy decision to this: “In this time of national disaster, the people of Colorado have been very generous. We’re doing a similar thing.”
Nothing is ever that simple at the University of Colorado. It’s not that the school is insensitive. It’s that it is indecipherable. At CU, helping Katrina’s victims takes a good turn through such a maze of contingencies and calculations that the philanthropy gets lost.
Brown, CU’s new chief executive, is in charge of image reclamation at a school battered for two years by scandals. Brown said providing tuition subsidies to Katrina victims who can afford $20,000 in tuition “will give pause to some state residents because you’re in effect taking the money away from (state residents) who may not have the resources.”
“We have to be mindful,” he said, “of the precedent we set.”
Giving some rich sorority queen from Tulane a financial break she doesn’t need would be more of a concern if CU faced a Katrina-sized catastrophe every few years. It won’t. This is the worst natural disaster in U.S. history.
Harvard and Dartmouth will waive tuition and fees for students who have already paid a closed Gulf Coast school. Franklin College of Indiana and Oklahoma City University are offering free tuition to any student enrolled in schools in the hurricane-affected area.
And of course, CSU will not means-test students from schools closed by Katrina. School officials are not trying to set a precedent, and they’re certainly not trying to cheat needy Coloradans.
“You can make this complicated,” said Frank. “But at the end of the day, this is just the right thing to do.”
Jim Spencer’s column appears Monday, Wednesday and Friday. He can be reached at 303-820-1771 or jspencer@denverpost.com.
