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House Panel OKs Tuition Bill

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By CATHERINE DOLINSKI

cdolinski@tampatrib.com

Published: March 20, 2009

TALLAHASSEE - The 81-year-old founder of Florida's prepaid college program trekked back to the Capitol on Thursday to plead with lawmakers not to allow six state universities to raise their tuition.

Moving slowly and wearing an eye patch because of a medical condition, Stanley Tate was anything but timid in telling House lawmakers that they were "making a terrible mistake" by voting to allow tuition to increase up to the national average at Florida universities.

"I just can't impress on you enough ... the huge number of people in this state that will no longer be eligible to have a college education," he said.

A real estate developer from Miami-Dade County, Tate wrote the legislation in 1987 that created what is now called the Stanley G. Tate Prepaid College Program to allow families to pay future tuition and fees over time.

The goal was to make college more affordable, said Tate, who oversaw the program for 18 years. Now he is pouring thousands of his own dollars into a campaign to kill a proposal from Rep. Will Weatherford, R-Wesley Chapel, and Sen. Ken Pruitt, R-Port St. Lucie, to allow six of Florida's universities to raise tuition by up to 15 percent a year. Tate has commissioned a Web site, hired a public relations firm and bought full-page ads in newspapers attacking the bill.

"The low-income people don't have anyone to stand up here for them," he told a House panel that oversees university budgets. "The African-American people don't have anyone to stand up here for them. I'm here representing them. ... I'm begging you not to do it."

But the House panel voted against him - unanimously - saying that Florida's universities need to be more competitive and provide a better education.

With tuition in Florida lowest in the nation, lawmakers in 2007 and 2008 authorized the five research universities - Florida State University, the University of Florida, the University of South Florida, the University of Central Florida and Florida International University - to begin charging students more.

This year's legislation would allow Florida's six remaining universities to raise tuition by up to 15 percent a year until they reach the national average. Those schools are Florida A&M University, New College of Florida, the University of West Florida, the University of North Florida, Florida Atlantic University and Florida Gulf Coast University.

"If tuition is raised, it goes to help with student-faculty ratios," Weatherford said. "We have the worst - and I will re-emphasize this - the worst student-faculty ratios in the country, the state of Florida does."

Bright Futures would not cover the tuition increase. Weatherford emphasized that his bill also sets aside 30 percent of the tuition increase for need-based aid.

The increase would not apply to students starting school before July 1, 2007, or those with prepaid college contracts in effect on that date.

Weatherford heaped praise on Tate but said: "His goal is to make sure that college is the most affordable and cheapest in the country. My goal is to keep it affordable, but not to the detriment of the quality."

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