DOES MARYLAND want its public universities to be No. 1 -- in tuition rates?
That's the question that the University System of Maryland Board of Regents will begin to address at our meeting tomorrow.
Maryland already has the seventh-highest tuition rates in the country for public college students. Decisions already made by the governor and the General Assembly will mean that, on average, Maryland university students will pay 14 percent more this fall than they did last year.
This year, higher education was singled out for much bigger cuts than the rest of Maryland's budget. Cuts to the university system's budget, which totaled $120 million, were more than twice as deep as other line items. Indeed, some state spending -- such as local government aid -- rose, while college teaching slots were dropped, professors' contracts were ended and tuition soared.
At the same time, states such as California, with much bigger budget problems than Maryland's, are making smaller cuts in state funding of their universities.
Maryland is one of the wealthiest states in America -- in the top five by most measures -- yet we rank 32nd in the nation in state funding for higher education as a percentage of income. The budget cuts already made this year roll back state funding per student more than 10 years. In fact, Maryland has reached a notorious milestone: For the first time in our history, the tuition and fee burden on students and their families will exceed our state's investment in these schools.
Now, the governor has requested that the system reduce its spending by another $40 million, a step that will force hundreds of layoffs and tuition hikes that will take this year's increase close to 20 percent. The impact on students and the local economy will be serious -- bigger classes, delays in graduation, higher costs, fewer services to farmers and businesses and fewer research contracts.
These huge tuition hikes are no burden on the very wealthy. And poor students are subsidized by an array of financial aid. But in the midst of an economic slump, middle-class families simply can't afford 20 percent annual tuition hikes, amounting to nearly $1,000 at College Park. Middle-class families already pay most of the taxes in Maryland. They shouldn't have to pay the highest tuition rates in the nation as well.
The truth is that there is no fiscal need to force another round of cuts to the university system's budget or another big tuition hike this year. The legislature passed a balanced budget for the coming year. Because of income tax cuts in the last decade and the increasing investment in public schools under the Thornton Commission legislation, the state does need to raise up to $1 billion in revenue in fiscal year 2005 to balance the books. This year, Gov. Robert L. Ehrlich Jr. proposed, and the legislature rejected, doing that by putting slot machines at racetracks. Legislators proposed, and the governor rejected, doing it by closing tax loopholes. So far, they have not come to an agreement.
But that short-term political argument is no excuse for sending the bill to Maryland's middle-class college students and causing long-term harm to our public university system.
In the past dozen years, the state's investment in public higher education has paid off for taxpayers -- in hundreds of millions of dollars in research contracts coming here, in better-prepared graduates for local employers and in higher incomes for Marylanders. All this is put at risk by unneeded, draconian budget cuts that single out public higher education and roll back the clock over a decade.
It's time for the governor and legislature to compromise on paying the state's bills and to stop shifting Maryland's fiscal problems onto the backs of middle-class students and their families. It's time to agree that we want our public colleges and universities to be No. 1 in quality and opportunity -- not in tuition rates.
Jim Rosapepe is member of the University System of Maryland Board of Regents and former vice chair of the Maryland House Ways and Means Committee.
