Higher education was not exempt from the figurative slash of the knife in its budget this year by the Utah legislature.
Lawmakers cut 9% from higher education’s funding, resulting inemployee furloughs and layoffs and higher tuition for students pursuing their education at Utah colleges. It is anticipated that future years will see even more cuts to higher education budgets.
While some students are grateful that the tuition hikes did not go any higher than they did (ranging anywhere from 4% to 9.5% in Utah’s colleges), there are many students who are working their way through college and barely making it with current tuition costs. These hikes will make it even more difficult for these students to attain their goals during this time of economic hardships when their employment situations will not see relative pay increases to match their now rising cost of attending post secondary institutions.
Utah needs to examine tuition-free programs for students, particularly those with low incomes, like other states do, such as Arkansas, Florida, Georgia, Louisiana, Massachusetts, New Jersey, New Mexico, and West Virginia.
Filed under: budget, Education, higher education, school tuition, Utah Legislature
I disagree that education, let alone higher education, is a right. When I read “tuition-free” education I wonder if it is free for those students because somebody willingly donated their means, or because the State decided to tax more and then redistribute, taking a sliver for themselves. In the name of rights, right?
I support getting an education, and I support using “love and persuasion” to enable those seeking. I encourage myself and others to avoid the paternalistic tendency to Choose the Right for others.
I truly would like to believe that given the chance I would take my ed tax dollars and willingly donate them towards the education of others. In my opinion one needs not be convinced that the State is the least efficient medium of accomplishing the education of the people, assuming education is accomplished. Show me another route and I will take it, a route that is not incentivized towards failure and the ballooning of bureaucracy.
Actually I have been shown such routes. Now give me back some ed taxes so I can put that towards it as well.
I am pleased to find this blog, I have been looking for a better means of keeping an eye on the Utah legislature on a weekly basis. I’m sorry if I sometimes take the time to vent, usually towards the machine that I believe is current government. I also understand that my opinion is no more than that, a half-ignorant opinion.