This week the Arizona Republic’s Editorial Board published an editorial urging the Arizona Board of Regents to not raise tuition or fees on any of its students. The column starts by simply saying, “Proposed fee and tuition increases at the state's three universities go too far. The Arizona Board of Regents should pare them back.” Obviously, no students want to see their cost of attendance go up, but Gov. Doug Ducey and the Republican-controlled Legislature have given the Board of Regents very few reasonable options.
Even the Arizona Republic’s editorial admits ASU has already severely cut the services it will offer. The column even mentions the approximate cuts of $34 million ASU will be making this year.
Students are preparing for the results of the new state budget and are expecting to see their class choices limited in upcoming semesters. A March State Press article looked at some of the changes students are expecting, especially in the language departments, and concluded, “In anticipation of the cut, students in some programs were notified that some classes and programs would no longer be funded and would not be offered in the upcoming semesters.”
There comes a point when the University is left without anything else it can cut without significantly affecting the degrees its students are pursuing. If a student is half-way through her degree and suddenly the University has to cut funding for her program due to budget cuts, she’s left stranded with no way to finish her degree.
By telling the Board of Regents it should simply not raise tuition or fees, the Arizona Republic is placing the blame for the budget problems on the wrong group. Instead of the burden being on the regents to keep education affordable, according to the state’s constitution, the state is charged with opening public schools in which “instruction furnished shall be as nearly free as possible.”
The state government has not fulfilled its responsibility to maintain education “as nearly free as possible” in this year’s budget or ever since the recession started in 2008. Over that period, “state support for higher education fell from $9,439 per pupil in 2008 to $5,024 in 2015.” With the dramatic cuts to funding in higher education, members of the Board of Regents are wondering, “Whether the board has the standing to sue the state.”
In order to avoid drastically cutting services, which have already been severely cut over the past several years, it’s simple to see that the regents would be forced to raise tuition following nearly $100 million in cuts to the funding from the state over a single year. A public university has three major sources of income, the state, donations and tuition/fees charged to students. It’s unrealistic to think that donations will go up as a result of state budget cuts, so when the budget is significantly cut, the only remaining source of income to recoup lost funds is the students.
By telling the regents to simply not raise tuition on in-state students, the Arizona Republic is essentially telling the regents that while they have their hands tied behind their backs, they should simply untie themselves to fund the universities without raising tuition. Ducey and the Republicans in the Legislature should be held responsible for the unfathomable cuts to higher education instead of trying to pass the blame to a group that has been left relatively powerless to control their fate.
Reach the columnist at zjosephs@asu.edu or follow @zachjosephson on Twitter.
Editor’s note: The opinions presented in this column are the author’s and do not imply any endorsement from The State Press or its editors.
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