Tuition increase may have to wait

According to House Speaker Jim Tucker, there are two main reasons why you shouldn't expect to see action anytime soon to increase college tuition. In the House alone, 71 out of 105 members are up for …

According to House Speaker Jim Tucker, there are two main reasons why you shouldn’t expect to see action anytime soon to increase college tuition. In the House alone, 71 out of 105 members are up for re-election in just a few months, and they’re extra-sensitive to reactions to how they vote. Just imagine how easy it would be to cut a 30-second spot of sad-faced college students. “It’s a political reality and we have to deal with it moving forward,” Tucker, R-Algiers, said Friday during the annual conference of the Public Affairs Research Council. The other chief reason has to do with the so-called GRAD Act, which was adopted by lawmakers last year as a way to grant colleges and universities increased autonomy and flexibility in exchange for a commitment to meet clearly defined statewide performance goals, including better graduation rates. Tucker says many lawmakers want to see some results from the accountability program before they allow for another tuition boost. The results from the GRAD Act, however, will not be ready until June or July, which means any proposed tuition increase may come late in the game, if at all. The session is slated to end no later than June 23. Tucker suggested this year’s tuition-increase vote might follow the same lines as last year’s GRAD Act vote. That’s when the Senate was able to muster only 26 supporters for final passage—just enough to satisfy the two-thirds majority needed for such legislative changes. “There may be problems in the Senate,” Tucker says. —Jeremy Alford