In years past, higher education news from Annapolis has far more often been bad than good. This year, the news has been mostly positive, but the biggest problem is most of the proposals for higher education funding don’t address longterm problems – they’re simply short-term solutions.
Yesterday, a senate subcommittee essentially laid the groundwork for a tuition freeze next year. Delegates have found a way to provide the money the university would not get in revenue if they were to keep tuition the same. This would alleviate the most significant concern about a tuition freeze – that the university would lose money it was counting on for essential programs and improvements. This is great news for students, who will see no tuition increase next year and, at the same time, won’t see the university lose any money it needs to function and improve.
However, this temporary fix for a perennial problem is short-sighted, and there is still nothing in place to guarantee future state budget cuts won’t drastically harm the university system. While a tuition freeze for one year will provide temporary relief for students who have been paying more and more each year, lawmakers in the state must concetrate efforts on longterm funding solutions for higher education.
If we learned anything from the drastic budget cuts in recent years, it is that the university system has to lean heavily on tuition revenue if there is a dip in state support. This year’s proposal for a tuition freeze would also cap the amount of tuition the university system can spend. This helps force the university to find other methods of funding so it is not relying so heavily on tuition. It would also force the system to save extra money. But once again, this is also a short-term solution to a long-term problem. Lawmakers should be worried about what happens next year and beyond.
Obviously, students should support a tuition freeze with the stipulation the state provide the funding the university would not get without a tuition hike. However, students as well as system administrators and state leaders must also start pushing for more forward-thinking solutions so they may prevent budget crises rather than have to recover from them.
