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Tuition Rise, Reduction In Students Ordered

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By ADAM EMERSON, The Tampa Tribune

Published: January 25, 2008

TAMPA - With a budget deficit looming, the board that oversees Florida's 11 public universities ordered its schools to start cutting enrollment and raise tuition by nearly $200 a year.

A drop in state tax collections has left a $157 million hole in the collective university system budget. Despite a growing student population, members of the Board of Governors on Thursday told university presidents to admit fewer students.

Layoffs are inevitable as universities struggle with the fallout of a $1 billion state budget deficit and the promise of worse days to come. Already, class sizes at nearly all Florida schools are the largest in the nation. The board sought to keep them from getting bigger by limiting student access.

How that's done is up to each university. But decreasing the size of the freshman class may not be enough, state university system Chancellor Mark Rosenberg said at Thursday's board meeting in Tallahassee.

Universities, Rosenberg said, may also have to revise agreements that have guaranteed community college students a spot at a university after two successful years in school.

"The state university system is shrinking," Rosenberg said. "We do not have the ability to continue to keep our doors open."

To soften the budget cuts, the board imposed an 8 percent tuition increase on students, which will take effect next fall. The board took this action despite a promise from Gov. Charlie Crist that student costs wouldn't increase next year, and despite the resistance from the Senate president, who argues that only the Legislature has the authority to raise tuition.

"It's frightening to think that the Board of Governors would seriously consider a proposal that would, in effect, destroy the prepaid college tuition program in Florida," Senate President Ken Pruitt said in a statement after the board's meeting.

A spokesman for Crist referred only to the governor's recent budget recommendations for next year, which don't include a tuition increase.

The Board of Governors and a group of influential Floridians, including former Gov. Bob Graham, are suing the Legislature to wrest away its power to raise tuition. A Tallahassee judge recently dismissed their complaint but gave them until next month to show how the current funding system hurts them.

Until that's resolved, though, the board refuses to acknowledge the Legislature's tuition-setting power. Its move on Thursday raises costs for a full-time undergraduate resident of Florida by $93 a semester. It will generate $32 million for the university system during the year.

"I think this board has made it very clear we recognize the need to raise tuition, and we intend to increase tuition," said Sheila McDevitt, the board's vice chairwoman.

'A Certain Level Of Quality'

Other board members argued that the integrity of the university system is at stake.

"I have never been involved with a mediocre institution in my life," said Gus Stavros, a board member and Pinellas County philanthropist.

Stavros pointed to a recent Tampa Tribune interview with the governor's higher education adviser, Dean Colson. Colson, whom Crist picked to be his liaison with the Board of Governors, told the Tribune that tuition is too low, and the university system is "severely underfunded."

"You have to recognize that, to have a certain level of quality, it's going to cost a certain amount of money," Colson said then. "One way to do that is to raise tuition."

Florida's public universities charge about $3,400 a year in tuition and fees, the lowest amount of any state in the nation. The national average is about $6,200 a year.

Florida's universities also have the highest student-to-faculty ratio in the nation. There are about 31 students for every one faculty member. The national average is 25-to-1.

Reducing the number of faculty and enrolling the same number of students would only widen that gap, board members say. But some university presidents feared that otherwise qualified students will be refused entry, particularly minority students who are the first in their family to attend college.

Rosenberg, however, said that universities have for years offered admission to students on the hopes the Legislature would provide the necessary funding. That money has come up short, Rosenberg said.

"That's why we're in this position," he said.

The board's move pushes universities to hold off making admissions decisions until after they learn how much money they will get from the Legislature.

Before Thursday's vote, USF was about 60 percent of the way toward achieving its goal of enrolling about 4,200 freshmen, the same number as last year, said Bob Spatig, USF's undergraduate admissions director.

"We still have plenty of work in front of us," Spatig said.

Effect On Community Colleges

Rosenberg acknowledged that the decision to admit fewer students would only add pressure on community colleges, which are dealing with their own funding woes and still enrolling more students. When the economy sours, many flock to community colleges to acquire advanced job skills. Now those schools will have to absorb thousands more unable to gain access to the universities as freshmen.
Community college students also have long enjoyed the state's liberal agreements with the state universities that allow a student who successfully finishes two years of community colleges a seat at a university.

Rosenberg said he may not be able to guarantee those seats at every university.

Those agreements are among the reasons that Hillsborough Community College has declined to offer four-year degrees as other Florida community colleges have.

Craig Johnson, HCC's vice president of academic affairs, said it's too early to know the effect of Rosenberg's suggestions until he has more details.

"I would think there would be some interest in preserving that, and in not trying to create barriers that do not now exist," Johnson said.

The grim budget outlook may also complicate USF's planned construction of a new Lakeland campus.

Although the Board of Governors placed a new campus for USF Lakeland on the construction wish list it sends to the Legislature, a few members on Thursday questioned its placement at a time when they're facing budget cuts.

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

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