The universities won.
They all sent their lobbyists out to beat down the legislators, and it worked.
State Sen. Luke Kenley (R-Noblesville) proposed Senate Bill 262 early this session. It was a bill that would limit tuition increases to 3 percent after a student's freshman year.
So, if tuition for a freshman in 2005 were $9,000, his tuition the next year couldn't be higher than $9,270. Tuition for a freshman in 2006, however, could be as high as the university wanted.
The idea was to create a contract so that parents would have an idea of what they would be spending on college tuition over a four-year period ($9,000+ $9,270+ $9,548.10+ $9,834.54= $37,652.64).
Families needed this kind of security. In the last 10 years, the average family income increase was 30 percent. In the same time span, the average cost of an Indiana college jumped by about 110 percent.
But the universities didn't like it.
So Kenley amended the bill.
He made the bill applicable only for in-state, full-time undergraduate students. He raised the limit to the greater between the cost-of-college-living index or 4 percent.
But the universities still didn't like it.
He allowed the schools to raise their stated tuition after the legislature approved their budget in odd-numbered years. This way, if schools thought the state was being too frugal, they could compensate by charging more for students who enrolled late.
But the universities still didn't like it.
College officials said that limiting the amount of money they took in would limit the programs the schools wanted to offer students. Kenley took care of that, too. He designed the bill so that tuition for incoming freshmen was uncapped.
That means that, while sophomores might pay just over $9,000, incoming freshmen could be forced to pay $20,000, and the Indiana code could not stop them.
But the universities still didn't like it.
So they made a promise. They said that if Kenley pulled the bill, Boards of Trustees across the state would remedy the problem on their own.
The gentle senator acquiesced. Now, the universities in Indiana remain autonomous. They will decide how much each student will pay next year without so much as a peep from the legislature.
These universities could keep their word. They could do a favor to the thousands of families who are not wealthy enough to put a child through college, but not in need enough to qualify for financial aid.
They could look at ways to reduce spending so that the student working two jobs just to pay her bills can spend more time learning and less time toiling.
But chances are, we will be here again next year. Kenley will be pushing a similar bill, aimed at making college affordable again. It might be like this one. Or it might provide incentives to schools who don't hike up tuition farther than an old professor's trousers. Or it might create commissions to study college affordability.
But no matter what it does, the universities still won't like it.
Write to Jay at jdkenworthy@bsu.edu
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