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Tuition increases scaled back (POLL)
Final vote expected Friday
By Art JesterAJESTER@HERALD-LEADER.COM
Facing some of the angriest public remarks by a group of Kentucky university presidents in memory, a panel gave the initial vote of approval Thursday to higher tuition at the state's public universities and community colleges, including five institutions whose requests were cut.
By a 4-0 vote, with one member absent, the budget and finance committee of the state Council on Postsecondary Education approved the council staff's tuition recommendations for 2008-2009. It's rare for universities' tuition requests to be denied or even scrutinized to the extent they have been this year, at least since higher education reforms of 1997.
The full council will cast the final vote at 8:30 a.m. Friday. Under state law, the council must approve tuition rates.
Council Chairman John Turner of Lebanon sat in on the meeting but said he would not comment until Friday's meeting. However, several disappointed school presidents stayed for more than 40 minutes after Thursday's vote to air their grievances with Turner, an industrial executive.
Even then, Thursday's balloting was already viewed as anticlimactic by the five institutions whose requested increases will apparently be cut by 1 percentage point or more -- Eastern Kentucky, Kentucky State, Northern Kentucky and Western Kentucky universities, and the Kentucky Community and Technical College System.
The presidents expressed disenchantment not only with cuts in their tuition requests, but with a host of issues that seem to have left the state's post-secondary system in confusion and conflict.
"The die is cast, the decision has been made," said Michael McCall, president of the 16-college Kentucky Community and Technical College System, whose requested increase of 13 percent in tuition and fees was cut to 5.2 percent.
The council's refusal to go along with the requests "will have a long-lasting impact on the future of higher education in Kentucky" by preventing it from reaching the 1997 higher education reform goals, McCall said.
"This is a mess," said Gary Ransdell, president of Western Kentucky University, now set to get an 8 percent increase instead of 9 percent, for in-state undergraduates.
"I have not seen this much disarray within the council and distrust between the council and the institutions," Ransdell said. "This tension could have been avoided by some dialogue between the council and the campuses."
Ransdell said WKU will now have to cut an additional $962,000, after just completing a $5 million budget reduction that cost two vice presidents their jobs and eliminated 23 faculty slots.
Kentucky "has lost its way" trying to meet the goals of the higher education reforms of 1997, said James Votruba, president of Northern Kentucky University, which would get to charge 8.5 percent more instead of its requested 9.68 percent.
Votruba called on Gov. Steve Beshear and the General Assembly to spell out a clear public policy on post-secondary education and to come up with the money to support it.
Beshear cut the post-secondary budget by 3 percent in January, and the legislature made another 3 percent cut when it adopted the 2008-2010 state budget.
Eastern Kentucky University President Doug Whitlock said he and EKU's trustees wanted an 8 percent increase "cognizant of the impact" it would have on students they know.
"We looked at what it would take ... to maintain a quality academic program on our campus and keep Eastern moving forward," Whitlock said.
The council committee approved a 7 percent tuition increase for EKU's in-state undergraduates.
The council staff's recommendations were developed by a team headed by John Hayek, interim vice president for finance. Hayek said the council has to consider taking actions that are in the best interest statewide. He gave a 40-minute presentation reviewing the reasons for the staff recommendations. A key consideration was affordability, he said, comparing tuition at Kentucky's public institutions with that at schools in the South and nationally.
WKU's Ransdell took issue, saying "there are a lot of flaws in that data."
Voting for the tuition recommendations were council vice-chairman Dan Flanagan of Campbellsville, the committee chairman; Donna Moore of Midway; Lisa Osborne of Carrollton; and student member Ryan Quarles of Georgetown, a University of Kentucky law student. Kevin Canafax of Covington was absent.