By Todd Engdahl, EDUCATION NEWS COLORADO

Future tuition rates for students at four Colorado college campuses are now fully in the hands of those institutions.

The Colorado Commission on Higher Education Thursday approved tuition and financial flexibility plans submitted by the Colorado State University System, Metropolitan State College and Fort Lewis College.

The plans are the first approved under a new law that allows colleges to raise resident undergraduate tuition up to 9 percent a year for each of the next five years. Institutions that want to raise tuition beyond that must seek CCHE approval, and they also have to demonstrate that affordability and access will be protected for middle- and lower-income students. Tuition ceilings used to be set by the legislature.

The three institutions received permission to raise tuition above the 9 percent level – but that doesn’t mean they actually will raise tuition by specific amounts. College boards typically set tuition in May or June, and changing financial conditions between now and then will determine what bills students actually will have to pay in the 2011-12 school year.

Most of the flexibility plans submitted by colleges around the state proposed varying tuition schemes based on different levels of state support, suggesting higher tuition increases if state revenue drops.

Gov. Bill Ritter’s proposed 2011-12 budget, released earlier this week, includes a “less bad” funding level for higher ed – $555 million in state support. If that number holds through legislative budget deliberations next spring, tuition hikes may be less than they would be otherwise. Tuition now supplies about $1.6 billion to college revenues.

Here are highlights of the three approved plans:

CSU – The proposal would generate increased tuition revenue by requiring Fort Collins students to take more credits to qualify as full time and by eliminating a credit hour discount at Pueblo. The cost per credit hour would stay the same, but some students could see increases of 20 percent at Fort Collins and nearly as much at Pueblo by taking more classes. Earlier this year CSU announced a financial aid program that cushions many lower-income students against tuition hikes. (See CSU plan.)

Metro – The college says it has two options for 2011-12. The first is raising tuition 21 percent but reducing some fees by rolling them into tuition bills. That would yield a combined tuition and fee increase of 16.5 percent. If Metro trustees decide not to change the fee structure, the proposed tuition increase alone would be 12.5 percent.

Fort Lewis – The Durango college also paints two tuition possibilities. Under the first, the definition of full time would be raised from 10 credit hours to 12, and tuition would be raised 9 percent a year for five years. The second plan, assuming reduced state support, would increase tuition 20 percent in each of the next two years.

The CSU and Metro plans were approved for the full five years; the Fort Lewis proposal for two.

Commission member Greg Stevinson, who headed a subcommittee that reviewed the flexibility plans, said, “These three just rose to the top. They were very well done.”

Stevinson’s group is still reviewing and negotiating proposals from the University of Colorado and community college systems, the University of Northern Colorado and from Adams, Mesa and Western State colleges. Mesa’s original application was not accepted but has been revised. The Colorado School of Mines, where the CCHE met Thursday, chose not to apply for flexibility and will stay within the 9 percent ceiling.

Stevinson told the commission, “I’m not sure everyone is going to get two-year approval.” Asked later what colleges he meant, Stevinson declined to say and added he’s reasonably confident issues can be resolved.

(See this previous Education News Colorado story for more details on flexibility plans.)

The new law and the flexibility plans cover only tuition for undergraduate Colorado residents. Colleges and universities are free to set tuition as they like for out-of-state and all graduate students.

The new law also doesn’t deal with student fees, which have risen rapidly in recent years and used for a wide variety of purposes, including building construction. A new Department of Higher Education panel is studying that issue and will report to the CCHE next spring.

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By Todd Engdahl, EDUCATION NEWS COLORADO

Schools would receive a slight increase in state support under Gov. Bill Ritter’s proposed 2011-12 budget, but not enough to cover projected enrollment growth and inflation, and the total would be far short of the full Amendment 23 formula.

The governor also proposed hold-the-line spending for state colleges and universities, leaving them with a cut of $89 million because of federal stimulus funds that will no longer be available.

Ritter publicly unveiled his proposed budget Tuesday afternoon after having delivered it to the legislative Joint Budget Committee late Monday.

“This proposal increases classroom spending, [and] we’re doing everything we can to protect higher education, “ Ritter told reporters.

The budget totals about $19.1 billion, including about $7.6 billion from the tax-supported general fund. The current, 2010-11 budget originally was about $19.6 billion, and the general fund totaled about $7 billion.

The governor’s office said the general fund budget contains about $714 million in balancing measures, including cuts and transfers from other state funds into the general fund. Another $379 million in programs simple weren’t funded, including $365 million that would have gone to schools if the full A23 formula were applied. During budget setting last spring the legislature, based on legal advice, narrowed the base of school spending to which the formula is applied.

Todd Saliman, Ritter’s budget director, said that if the official revenue forecasts issued in September hold up, the governor’s plan would produce a balanced budget without the need for further major adjustments.

The proposal is Ritter’s last budget, since he’ll be leaving office in January. Saliman said he doesn’t expect the new governor would make major adjustments, predicting, “The core components of this budget won’t change.” Saliman noted that when Ritter took office in early 2007, “The core components of the budget that Gov. Owens wrote did not change.”

The legislature, of course, has the final say on the budget, and the JBC starts its hearings later this month. Budget deliberations and directions could be changed significantly if Republicans take majority control of one or both houses in Tuesday’s election. If the GOP gains only one house, the six-member JBC would have an even 3-3 partisan split.

K-12 support

The plan proposes a $43 million increase in total program funding, which is the combined state-local effort to pay classroom operating costs. Current total program funding is a little under $5.4 billion. The state contribution next year would increase $91.2 million while the local share would drop $48.2 million because of declines in local property tax revenues.

The base per-pupil funding would rise to $5,585 from $5,530, but the average per-pupil funding (the amount calculated after special forms of aid to districts are factored in) would drop by $39.57 from the current $6,822.

The funding is estimated to be $92 million short of what would be needed to fully cover the costs of inflation and enrollment increases. And, it’s another $365 million short of full A23 funding.

Higher education

The budget maintains base state tax support of $555 million, the amount colleges and universities received this year plus $89 million in federal stimulus funds.

Colleges now have the authority to raise resident tuition up to 9 percent a year with legislative oversight. The budget assumes campus trustees will do that plus raise non-resident tuition and average of 5 percent. That would yield $1.68 billion in tuition revenue, up from this year’s $1.6 billion and continuing the shift of higher ed costs from taxpayers to students and families.

Ritter said the proposed spending “allows us to continue the conversation about higher education funding.” That conversation will kick off next week with the formal announcement of a new higher education strategic plan, which does call for increased support of colleges and universities (background story).

• Links to Ritter budget documents and details

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By Todd Engdahl, EDUCATION NEWS COLORADO

The committee that’s been studying the future of state colleges and universities finished its work Wednesday with unanimous approval of a strategic plan that warns of the looming crisis facing higher education and recommends increased tax support for the system.

“I think it’s a product that we can all be proud of. I hope it just doesn’t end up on somebody’s shelf,” said committee co-chair Jim Lyons.

The plan will be formally presented to Gov. Bill Ritter and the Colorado Commission on Higher Education at a meeting Nov. 4. The ball then will be in the commission’s court to refine the strategic plan if it chooses, adopt it and make recommendations to the legislature.

“We will use it to the very best of our ability,” Jim Polsfut, a member of the steering committee and also chair of the CCHE, said Wednesday. “I don’t know of any particular disagreement by CCHE members right now.”

The 12-member steering committee included Polsfut and CCHE member Greg Stevinson, and several other commission members served on the four subcommittees that developed preliminary recommendations for the steering group.

Ritter, who kicked off the whole process late last year by appointing the steering committee, isn’t running for office so won’t be involved when the debate about the future of higher education shifts to the Capitol next year.

Don Elliman, an ex officio member of the steering committee, noted the unpredictable future facing the proposed strategic plan. “If the new administration doesn’t buy into it, you don’t have a snowball’s chance in hell.” (Elliman is state chief operating officer and a key Ritter advisor.)

Although the report was virtually done except for last-minute tweaks and printing, committee members couldn’t resist reprising discussions that have dominated the process since the panel’s first meeting, held nine months to the day before Wednesday’s final session.

The steering committee’s work and the proposed strategic plan surfaced a number of touchy issues, including funding, the role of the CCHE, the organization and capacities of the state system and the missions of individual colleges.

Here are highlights from (and background on) the last-minute conversation Wednesday:

Funding

Polsfut wondered if the committee should be more specific about possible sources of additional revenue for higher ed. (The plan lists possible sources but makes no recommendations.)

“I think there are some jurisdictional limits on what we can say,” said Lyons, meaning those decisions should be up to CCHE and the legislature. “I think we’ve reached the limit.”

The other co-chair, Dick Monfort, said he felt the panel should specifically recommend that a funding proposal be made to voters in 2011. Members agreed with that idea. “No reason we shouldn’t hold their feet to the fire,” said Lyons, speaking of legislators, who would have to decide on any state-proposed ballot measure.

Monfort also raised the issue of whether the report should go into more detail about how money is allocated to individual colleges, but Lyons said, “I think it would be usurping the CCHE.”

‘Governance’ vs. ‘oversight’

Steering committee members have made it clear they favor a stronger CCHE, an idea resisted by some college presidents and trustees. In an effort to ease that sensitivity, the panel agreed to scrub the strategic plan of the word “governance.” Lyons said, “We’re emphasizing coordination and oversight in place of regulation. … Governance for individual institutions will remain the same.” (All state colleges currently have their own appointed boards of trustees. The University of Colorado, Colorado State University and community college boards oversee multiple campuses.)

The plan recommends that CCHE launch a study of each college and university’s role and mission and make recommendations to the legislature. Some college leaders, such as Metro State President Steve Jordan, believe the state system currently is weighted too much toward research universities at one end and community colleges at the other.

Several panel members agree with Jordan’s view that the state needs to increase capacity at four-year institutions to serve the needs of the minority and first-generation students who will be the largest group of new students in the future.

Some universities, particularly the University of Colorado system, vigorously disagree with the notion that they aren’t able to serve new kinds of students and are fearful of a potential funding shift that could affect them.

Support of graduate programs

The proposed plan favors – in concept – giving more state funds directly to students (currently done in a partial fashion through the College Opportunity Fund) and less directly to institutions (known as fees for service). That prospect that makes some institutions, particularly those with expensive graduate programs, uneasy.

(The plan also suggested that colleges be funded partly on the basis of performance – like graduation rates – but not until after overall financial support of higher education increases.)

The strategic plan specifically mentions only two expensive graduate programs – CU’s Anschutz Medical Campus and Colorado State University’s veterinary medicine program – as services that might need direct state support.

There was some discussion Wednesday about whether the committee should expand that list, but it decided not to do so. “The specific balance has to be decided by the CCHE,” said member John Bliss.

Metro’s Jordan has been the most supportive of the strategic plan’s direction, while leaders at CU, the University of Northern Colorado, Mesa State College and, to a lesser extent, the Colorado School of Mines have raised more concerns.

(Read the institutions’ formal comments here.)

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