College fee increase stalls with House lawmakers

A bid by Louisiana higher education leaders to boost charges on college students stalled today after facing resistance from House lawmakers who questioned whether students and families could afford another fee hike. Rep. Chris Broadwater, R-Hammond, shelved his fee increase bill in the House Education Committee, likely dooming the push for higher college student fees for the legislative session. The proposal could have raised as much as $107 million a year for campuses that face budget cuts of up to $225 million in the coming fiscal year, on top of several years of multimillion-dollar reductions that have only been partially offset with tuition increases. University leaders pitched the fee hike as a way to stave off deep cuts to campuses, which they say could harm educational offerings, shutter programs, force layoffs of faculty and staff, and push some colleges into financial emergency status. Lawmakers who have passed rounds of tuition increases in recent years bristled at bumping up student costs again. “Rather than ever talking about appropriating more money for you, we talk about putting more on our kids and our families,” Rep. John Bel Edwards, D-Amite, told the state’s commissioner of higher education. “That’s the problem I have.” Edwards and Rep. Thomas Carmody, R-Shreveport, say as lawmakers continue to increase tuition, more state money for the schools has been siphoned away. They questioned if approving a fee increase would just give the administration and the Legislature an excuse to cut more state financing—in essence, shifting costs to students and families. The Associated Press has more on this story here.