Louisiana voters will decide who sets university tuition

NOLA.com by Julia O'Donoghue, NOLA.com | The Times-Picayune  on June 05, 2016 at  4:46 PM, updated June 05, 2016 at 4:47 PM          

Louisiana voters will decide this fall whether public universities and colleges should have the power to set their own tuition rates. 

Both chambers in the Louisiana Legislature approved Senate Bill 80 to shift authority over university and college tuition rates and student fees away from state lawmakers and to the schools' supervising boards.

Legislators have been willing to give certain local universities and colleges some control over tuition and fees in recent years, but only on a temporary basis. And what limited control the schools had over tuition and fees was supposed to expire at the end of next year.

If the voters approve this proposal, it would be the first permanent shift in power over college costs from the Legislature to the university boards. 

If the universities do get control over their tuition rates and fees, it is thought that the public universities and colleges will get more expensive to attend. Many institutions have already raised both tuition and fees on students with only limited control over those costs. 

Higher education officials have also made no secret that they are seeking control over tuition and fees, in part, to make up for the dramatic shortfalls in state funding they've experienced over the last eight years.

But in a few cases, colleges and universities also want the power to lower tuition rates so they can be more competitive with other schools in the region. Officials at the LSU law school, for example, believe their out-of-state tuition is too high to attract students from outside Louisiana.

Louisiana's higher education officials have been trying for years to get permanent control over tuition rates. Under the current law, the Legislature must approve any tuition change for any Louisiana university program with a two-thirds vote, a very difficult standard to meet. Florida is the only other state in the country that involves the Legislature in setting tuition rates at all.

But Louisiana lawmakers, particularly in the House, have been reluctant to totally give up control over tuition rates in the past. A few legislators indicated they only recently had a change of heart over the issue because of the dire state of higher education funding. 

Louisiana has reduced funding to its higher education institutions more than any other state in the country since 2008. And for the next academic year, another $50 million cut is currently on the table. 

"This state is not funding higher ed," said Rep. Dee Richard, an independent from Thibodaux, who had voted against similar legislation in the past. "I think it's time we allow them to have some autonomy."

Louisiana's universities still have some of the lowest tuition rates in the South. But there is concern that the universities and colleges will choose to raise tuition -- at a time when the TOPS college scholarship program isn't likely to cover as much of the cost of going to school.

The Legislature has not yet worked out just how much money TOPS recipients will receive in the next academic year. The scholarship could be worth as little as half of what it was expected to be.