Lt. Gov. Ron Ramsey puts his muscle behind Tennessee higher education tuition freeze bill

Lt. Gov. Ron Ramsey, R-Blountville, answers questions at the Tennessee Press Association convention, Thursday, Jan. 28, 2016, in Nashville, Tenn. (AP Photo/Mark Humphrey)
Lt. Gov. Ron Ramsey, R-Blountville, answers questions at the Tennessee Press Association convention, Thursday, Jan. 28, 2016, in Nashville, Tenn. (AP Photo/Mark Humphrey)

NASHVILLE - Lt. Gov. Ron Ramsey, the Republican Senate speaker, is throwing his full support behind legislation that seeks to freeze higher education tuition for two years and, in the future, would allow entering college freshmen to continue paying the same rate over a four-year enrollment.

"We can't continue allowing tuition growing 400 percent [like] over the last 20 years," Ramsey said, citing figures he said were compiled by his staff. "That's well above inflation. So I'm excited about this."

Ramsey's comments came last week during a discussion of legislative issues before newspaper executives at the Tennessee Press Association meeting in Nashville.

The Tuition Stability Act was filed earlier this month by Senate Education Committee Chairman Dolores Gresham, R-Somerville, and Rep. Martin Daniel, R-Knoxville. Gresham said the goal is slowing the pace of ever-increasing tuition rates at Tennessee's public colleges and universities.

"College tuition is out of control in Tennessee, and everyone knows it," Gresham said in her news release. "Any college student or their family who attended a Tennessee college or university during the last decade understands all too well the problem this bill addresses."

The bill would freeze tuition and mandatory fees at institutions like the University of Tennessee at Chattanooga until the 2018-19 school year. After that, the bill would require full governing board approval for increases greater than 2 percent above the Consumer Price Index.

And then there's the provision that allows entering students to pay the same tuition in their sophomore, junior and senior years. That "may be the most important" aspect of the legislation, Ramsey said.

"To have your tuition frozen for four years - to give students and parents some certainty, some budgetary planning ability - I think that's very important," he said. He noted the proposed tuition freeze wouldn't apply to fifth-year students, although he said wryly it took him five years to graduate.

Ramsey said tuition has grown by 456 percent over 20 years.

"That is not simply attributable to the fact the state does not put in as much as it did," Ramsey said, noting tuition rose far higher than the Consumer Price Index, a federal program that measures changes in the prices paid by urban consumers for a representative basket of goods and services.

Asked about the legislation, Republican House Speaker Beth Harwell, who joined Ramsey at the TPA conference, said, "I would think that would be well received in the House. I know there has been concern about tuition."

Republican Gov. Bill Haslam, who spoke later at the TPA conference, said, "I do think we have to do something to limit tuition increases. It's astounding how much it has gone up over the last 20 years.

"Higher ed would say the state is putting in a lot less into higher education than it used to," Haslam said, noting state dollars once funded 70 percent of higher education. It now funds about 30 percent.

But the governor said that even accounting for state government's decreased share of funding, "you still have seen tuition go up in extraordinary ways. It's why we say we need to look at how we manage everything at our universities."

Alluding to his administration's close look at outsourcing, Haslam noted, "I've gotten pushback on some of that. I don't know that's the right way, but we ought to look at it because we can't keep having tuition go up."

State share shrank

The shrinking share of state higher education funding accelerated during the Great Recession under Gov. Phil Bredesen. The governing boards of the University of Tennessee system and the Tennessee Board of Regents began approving whopping tuition increases to compensate.

At the same time, there was a shift in how higher education institutions were funded. The state began moving from a cost-per-student-enrolled system to one that rewarded institutions for moving students through to graduation. But there were still no flat-out percentage increases for institutions until last year, when Haslam provided for one. He plans to do that again in the budget he presents to lawmakers today.

"I'm going to fight really hard to make it so we hold up the state's end of the deal," said Haslam, who has a huge budget surplus on his hands this year. "We did that last year."

"Even with that," the governor said, "there's going to be pressure on everybody. Costs at universities are a reflection of what the state puts in and what it costs the school to operate and then what parents pay. We've got to look at all three. I'm going to do that."

In a statement last week, departing Board of Regents Chancellor John Morgan said the system shares lawmakers' interest in keeping down the price of post-secondary education, but added, "Artificial limits on fee increases may be more likely to produce the opposite result."

Morgan said the total dollar amount available per student has remained relatively constant for 10 years.

"What has changed is that the amount of funding provided by the state has decreased. With this state divestment, greater tuition increases have been necessary to maintain a relatively flat total funding amount per student."

Today, students pay about two-thirds of the cost to attend colleges and the state kicks in a third, Morgan said. A decade ago, the cost share was 50/50. And 20 years ago, student tuition covered just 30 percent, Morgan added.

UT system opposed

University of Tennessee system President Joe DiPietro said in a statement he wants tuition decisions to stay the way they are.

"We prefer that our trustees, who actively monitor and review all financial operations and trends of the University, continue to govern tuition levels, rather than have those politically set by the legislature," DiPietro said.

He added, "There are great regional differences across the nation in the cost of operations, the ability of students to pay, and state budgets."

Two years ago, he said, the system started an internal, multiyear effort to deal with what DiPietro called the "state's limited ability to adequately fund higher education."

DiPietro said that requires UT and higher education "to own the problem ourselves and develop strategies to limit tuition increases as much as possible."

According to the Tennessee Higher Education Commission's 2014-2015 Fact Book on higher ed, the state cut its share of spending on universities and two-year colleges by some $270 million between 2004-05 and 2014-15.

State appropriations per full-time student enrolled at a four-year school fell 27 percent, and revenue from student tuition and fees soared nearly 56 percent. Students' percentage share of education costs increased from 51 percent to 68.9 percent.

At two-year colleges, state funding per full-time student dropped 21.5 percent over that 10-year span, while tuition and fees jumped 45.3 percent. Students' share of costs rose from 43 percent to 58 percent, according to THEC.

Nationwide, higher education's soaring costs have been the topic of much discussion. In fact, instead of CPI, U.S. colleges and universities, public and private, even have their own inflation index, much like health care.

Contact Andy Sher at asher@timesfreepress.com, 615-255-0550 or follow via Twitter @AndySher1.

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