DENVER—A bill that would give Colorado colleges more flexibility to set tuition rates won approval Thursday from the Senate Education Committee after lawmakers warned funding for colleges is headed for a cliff in the next year or two.
University of Colorado President Bruce Benson, who earned his fortune in the oil industry, assured lawmakers that Colorado’s flagship university would not take advantage of students to make college unaffordable.
“I’m a businessman, I’d never do that,” Benson said.
Sen. John Morse, a Colorado Springs Democrat, said the state plans to cut state funding by $300 million next year to cover a projected $1.7 billion budget shortfall next fall.
He said elimination of federal subsidies and increased demands for Medicaid funding in future years, which lawmakers call “the budget cliff,” will only make it worse.
“The time to solve a cash crisis, in my view, is not in the middle of a cash crisis,” Morse said.
The full Senate will now consider the proposal.
Andrew Bateman, chairman of the Associated Students of Colorado, a political organizing group, told lawmakers that students are not opposed to tuition increases, but they want elected officials who can be held responsible make decisions on tuition, not governing boards and institutions.
“We don’t need to give institutions carte blanche to save the system,” he told the committee.
Gov. Bill Ritter said Thursday he endorses the concept of giving higher education more responsibility for its future, as long as there is adequate state oversight.
Ritter urged lawmakers to put a time limit on tuition flexibility, saying lawmakers need to review it in four or five years to see if it is working.
Ritter said giving colleges and universities permanent tuition flexibility would give people a false sense that the problems of higher education have been solved.
