The Rocky Mountain Collegian

Issue date: 2/15/08 Section: News

Media Credit: Katie Stevens ASCSU members address the Joint Budget Committee (JBC) in a formal meeting in the Legislative Museum on Thursday. In an effort to protect CSU students from rising tuition costs, ASCSU hopes to create a partnership with the JBC to limit an increase, in tuition or a credit cap closure, under 10 pecent.

DENVER -- For the first time in the history of Colorado education, the Joint Budget Committee met with student government to hear their proposal to replace a university revenue limit mandate with a tuition increase limit.

The Associated Students of CSU implored the committee to negotiate with university administration to not allow the cost of tuition to increase more than 10 percent each year.

The request comes after CSU President Larry Penley added a last-minute resolution to the Long Bill last year that could have increased tuition by 32 percent at CSU. Penley's controversial push for an increased spending authority was blocked after ASCSU lobbied against the increase, saying a $1,200 increase per student was too extreme for one year.

The final increase was 16 percent, which included a credit gap closure that brought tuition assessment to 10 credits, up from nine.

Most universities assess tuition at 12 credits, effectively increasing the cost of an education, while not technically increasing tuition.

"Students are the consumers of higher education since we are the only ones paying for and invested in the process," August Ritter, director of Legislative Affairs at ASCSU, said in a prepared statement. "I think it is important to remember that the students are the key to higher education and without us, higher education wouldn't exist."

But Rep. Jack Pommer (D-Boulder) said that with existing Colorado legislation, the committee has its hands tied in increasing funding for education and CSU administration has to be willing to compromise.

He said a 1992 citizen's initiative that put a cap on how much Colorado could raise taxes, coupled with a 2000 amendment that required a certain amount of funding for K-12 education shuts off the flow of state money to higher education.

Continued...

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