Tuition headed up once again

By By Terry R. Cassreino / assistant managing editor
May 19, 2002
It happened again: The state College Board has raised tuition starting this fall at Mississippi's eight public universities.
The nine board members who voted for the increase say they had no choice because budget cuts and a weak state economy were eroding university finances. A tuition hike was the easiest answer.
That may be true. But the tuition increase highlights another problem facing higher education, one that few people are eager to discuss for fear of worsening the situation and angering state legislators.
The problem: Lawmakers have never made education, from kindergarten through the university system, the budget priority it needs to be especially if legislators continue to say that education drives the economy.
Legislators will say otherwise and point to any number of programs and proposals they've approved in recent years, including a multi-year public school teacher pay raise they passed in 2000.
But the facts speak for themselves. The money state lawmakers have given higher education has steadily decreased the last four years, from $634 million for the 1999-2000 school year to $558 million for 2002-2003.
Meanwhile, tuition for in-state and out-of-state students at all eight universities has increased to offset the drop in state funds and help pay for the higher costs of providing a first-class quality education.
Next year, university tuition will jump 8 percent. The increase will range from $244 a year at Mississippi University for Women in Columbus to $290 a year at the University of Mississippi in Oxford.
One likely cause of all this is a needlessly convoluted and complicated budget process that is purposely designed to keep most of the 122 state House and 52 state Senate members in the dark and out of the mix.
Rather than consider one major, overall budget bill that covers all state agencies including elementary, secondary and higher education the Legislature funds state government with more than 100 separate funding bills.
Each bill requires individual House and Senate approval, thereby limiting the debate to a narrow topic and never giving either body a clear look at the complete state budget and overall spending patterns.
Aside from the lieutenant governor, the House speaker and the chairmen of the House and Senate budget committees, few if any of the rank-and-file legislators ever have a complete picture of the state's approximately $10 billion budget.
Fourteen years ago, then-Gov. Ray Mabus criticized the budget process that puts a vast amount of power in a handful of legislators. He urged them to revamp the process and use one budget bill to fund government.
Mabus' successor, Gov. Kirk Fordice, continued the crusade. Fordice, always critical of state spending, said one overall budget bill would give lawmakers, himself and the people a clear understanding of state spending.
Those pleas have gone nowhere because top lawmakers jealously guard their power. They cringe at the thought of letting others have more say in what  in their view has been and is rightfully their own domain.
And despite that, they continue to boast about how much they support and help and fund public education  while at the same time cutting its funds and taking the easy road by blaming it all on a weak state economy.
Wave goodbye
The final school tours of the infamous petting zoo at the Q.V. Sykes Recreational Center was set to take place on Wednesday and Thursday. The zoo, a questionable project from the start, is soon to be history.
Without having to fund a zoo with ducks, chickens, goats, a rabbit and a pony, Lauderdale County supervisors can now turn to other more pressing needs  including projects they wanted to fund earlier this year with a $5 million line of credit.