On its surface a bill before the Louisiana Legislature that might aid higher education, HB 862, if not changed would backfire, if not undermine, in deliverance of quality tertiary education.
The bill, by Democrat state Rep. Jason Hughes, would grant institutions the ability to establish and raise fees and differential tuition, the former across the board and the latter for more expensive and/or high-demand programs. These could increase up to ten percent annually. This would relax the constitutional standard that legislative supermajorities only could raise these.
The strategy here rightly emphasizes that raising revenues for higher education must come from its consumers. While Louisiana higher education isn’t where it was a quarter-century ago when it had about the lowest tuition in the country and consequentially an enormous relative taxpayer subsidy to public colleges, the corrective measures that begun about 15 years ago to right the imbalance faltered in recent years. At present, the state still ranks only 30th among its brethren in average senior-level tuition charged – which overstates because around 28 percent of in-state undergraduates enjoy Taylor Opportunity Program for Scholars awards that pay for tuition and varying amounts of fees.
Meanwhile, taxpayers continue disproportionately to shoulder the funding burden, exacerbated by trends over the past few years. Taxpayer support for higher education in Louisiana rose 14th highest among the states since 2019, and in terms of proportionality to personal income the state now ranks 24th. Part of that is because of TOPS, which comprises the bulk of the $365 million scheduled for spending this fiscal year which in financial aid terms ranks the state in raw numbers 16th most spent, ahead of several states with much higher populations.
That noted, two flaws doom the bill in its original form. The more minor of the two comes from its failure to ask anything in return for this increased authority granted to management boards. That was the premise behind the GRAD Act in 2010 and its several modifications throughout the decade. Essentially, the Legislature granted various autonomies, including the ability to raise tuition and fees certain percentages, if on an annual basis certain performance targets were met.
Somewhat inconsistent standards over the years muddied the waters somewhat, as well as reduced financial incentives due to budgetary constraints, but in the end it achieved partial success in keeping and graduating students and creating efficiencies in operations. Nudging Louisiana higher education in those directions, especially given its history of notorious inefficiency exemplified by its overbuilt nature that offsets the undesirable practice of leaving pricing in the hands of the Legislature, is something alterations towards similar pricing autonomy should employ.
But the real problem stems from the bill’s exporting increases onto taxpayers already doing more than their fair share in subsidizing higher education. Graduate stipends covering tuition and TOPS awards increases to match will become costs born by the citizenry. To make it acceptable, the bill needs amending to exclude differential tuition from TOPS coverage.
Without these changes, the bill detracts from sound public policy regarding higher education and, unless changed in that fashion, legislators should reject it.
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