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University funding cuts just put Montana economy farther behind

The Legislature’s cuts will price a college education out of reach of Montana’s poorer students, in a state where per capita income already is lowest in the nation.

Montana tuition cost fast becoming prohibitive

It was official before; now it’s nuts.

Great Falls Tribune

Thanks to the continued lack of funding from the recently adjourned Legislature, public higher education in Montana just stepped backward.

Going to college here is no longer just more expensive than anwhere else in the region; it’s a lot more expensive than anywhere else in the region.

"Those students who come from lower-income families … they simply are going to get priced out in the future," said Carrol Krause, commissioner of higher education in Montana.

And this in the state where workers earn less than every other state — not just the other states in the region.

It really amounts to a double whammy for students and the economy, because adequately funding education is the biggest, most tangible thing a state can do to improve its economy and its culture.

The university units have kept their part of the bargain, but the state government has not.

For 10 years now, Montana’s Legislature has flat-lined state support for higher ed.

The result is that college managers have had little choice but to increase tuition and fees.

We’ve been warning for some time now that Montana was near the point of diminishing returns in this game — the point at which enrollment starts to decline because college costs too much.

We didn’t anticipate that it may soon be cheaper to send Montana kids to Laramie or Boise than than to Missoula or Bozeman.

There’s just no excuse for that.

We’d go so far as to suggest that the contract the state has with its citizens doesn’t allow discrimination on the basis of income. The state’s Constitution, Article X, Section 1, states:

"It is the goal of the people to establish a system of education which will develop the full educational potential of each person. Equality of educational opportunity is guaranteed to each person of the state."

Thanks to the just-completed legislative session, tuition and fees at the University of Montana in Missoula and Montana State University in Bozeman are about to go up astronomically — 10 percent in each of the next two years, if present forecasts hold.

Only Idaho, where tuition and fees for a full-time student are almost $1,000 less than in Montana, expects an increase that large, and that’s just for one year — not back-to-back as is being planned in Montana.

Expected increases in other states are less — in some cases much less.

By the 2004-2005 academic year, tuition and fees for a year at UM, taking 12 credit hours, could be in the neighborhood of $5,000.

Some would argue that’s still a good deal. But it’s not when you compare it to other schools in the region.

When you consider that the average student already is coming out of college with a debt load of $21,000, is it any wonder that many of them have to leave the state to find work?

http://www.greatfallstribune.com/news/stories/20030506/opinion/248863.html

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