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Plan May Limit Tuition Grants

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By ADAM EMERSON, The Tampa Tribune

Published: January 19, 2008

Updated: 01/19/2008 12:22 am

For 29 years, the state of Florida has provided tuition grants for Florida residents attending a private Florida college or university full time.

With a $2.5 billion budget deficit looming, though, Gov. Charlie Crist has recommended eliminating those grants for students entering a private college next fall.

The state paid nearly 34,000 students about $100 million in the Florida Resident Access Grant this fiscal year. In budget recommendations released Thursday, Crist suggested cutting that amount to $55.5 million for the upcoming year. That would allow students currently receiving the award to continue to get the grant when they return to school next fall. New freshmen and transfer students would be ineligible.

The Legislature ultimately decides whether to cut the money, but some lawmakers who surveyed the disparate graduation rates among the state's private colleges have begun asking whether taxpayers are getting their money's worth.

The award typically pays $3,000 annually to Florida residents attending any of the 28 private, nonprofit colleges and universities in the state, where tuition and fees run as high as $30,000 a year. The state pays nearly $5,000 to educate a student at a public university.

Private Schools Have Other Means
Budget directors for Crist's office say that private universities have other means to raise the money, such as through their tuition revenues and endowments. It made little sense to continue awarding private colleges with tuition grants while public universities lay off employees and cap enrollments.

USF, for instance, announced Thursday that it plans to cut $52 million over the next two years because of the state budget deficit.

Advocates of the grants say Crist's recommendation will only limit the options for prospective students.

The state's public universities are either freezing their freshman numbers or talking about reducing their overall enrollment. That means admissions standards will be tightened.

The public universities "are way too crowded," said Ed Moore, president of Independent Colleges & Universities of Florida, an umbrella group for Florida's private colleges. "They can't absorb the students."

Every Little Bit Counts

Students who receive the grant say that $3,000 may not sound like much, but the money complements the aid they receive from other sources, like the federal government.

"Every little bit counts," said Jennifer Henry, 20, a criminology student at the University of Tampa.

The state created the tuition grants in 1979 as a lower-cost alternative to provide higher education to a growing Florida population.

Lawmakers have supported the grants for years, recognizing that the state university system cannot enroll every student seeking higher education. Several, however, have begun asking whether the state needs to tie the award to certain measures of performance.

For instance, members of the Senate's higher education committee were uneasy with the varying six-year graduation rates of the private colleges when they examined them in December. "There should be a certain expectation of graduation," said committee member Lee Constantine, an Altamonte Springs Republican.

Constantine said he has supported the grant, but added that there are "going to be a lot of services that are going to get a hard look. We're going to be searching for alternatives to save money."

Three colleges are exempt from Crist's proposals. They are the state's three private historically black colleges and universities: Edward Waters College in Jacksonville; Bethune-Cookman University in Daytona Beach; and Florida Memorial University in Miami Gardens.

Reporter Adam Emerson can be reached at (813) 259-8285 or aemerson@tampatrib.com.

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