BISMARCK – Debate over who should set tuition rates and fees at North Dakota’s 11 public colleges and universities began Wednesday as a committee heard testimony on a bill that would shift power from the State Board of Higher Education to the Legislature.
Rep. Kim Koppelman, R-West Fargo, the prime sponsor of House Bill 1303, said the Legislature is often blamed for skyrocketing tuition but has done little to control it in recent years, “other than shoveling ever-increasing piles of money into appropriations for higher education.
“We’ve often been told that that would solve it, but it has not,” he testified before the House Education Committee.
The proposed change in state law would permit the board to charge tuition and fees “in the amounts established by the legislative assembly.”
Rep. Mark Dosch, a bill co-sponsor and member of the House Appropriations Committee that has been hearing budget requests from campuses this week, said it’s frustrating that lawmakers don’t control tuition rates, “the most important aspect of the budgeting process.”
ADVERTISEMENT
“It’s kind of like driving a car down the road. We try to steer the car in the directions that we want, but someone else has their foot on the accelerator, and this ultimately ends very bad,” said Dosch, R-Bismarck.
In one example that especially rankled lawmakers, Dosch recalled North Dakota State University’s 8.8 percent tuition increase approved by the board in May 2011, just days after lawmakers adjourned after being assured campuses wouldn’t hike tuition more than 2.5 percent.
NDSU President Dean Bresciani defended the tuition hike at the time, saying it was needed to prevent cuts to core programs and that it wasn’t until the end of the session that lawmakers reduced the amount of equity funding, disproportionately affecting NDSU.
Larry Skogen, interim chancellor of the North Dakota University System, pointed out Wednesday that NDSU didn’t hike tuition the following year, and if spread out over two years it would have been a 4.4 percent increase.
“The frustration of a tuition increase four years ago should not, I believe, obviate the good business practice of having the governing board set those rates,” he said.
The Board of Higher Education, and prior to its creation in 1939 the Board of Regents, has set tuition at the state’s campuses since 1913. The Legislature’s Budget Section set non-resident tuition for a time until lawmakers repealed a law in 1999 and restored that authority to the board.
Skogen said tuition rates are currently set by legislative bodies in five states: California, Louisiana, Ohio, Florida and Washington.
Rep. Ben Koppelman, a committee member and Republican from West Fargo, said the bill is not so much a legislative attempt to hold power as it is a way to control the overall cost of higher education, which “has increased exponentially compared to inflation.”
ADVERTISEMENT
NDSU’s in-state tuition rate has jumped by nearly 66 percent in the last decade, from $3,982 in 2004-05 to $6,604 this school year. It was $2,110 in 1994-95.
Skogen said technology has driven up the cost of higher education more than any other factor. He also noted in-state tuition and fees have increased at a rate below the national average since 2009.
The Legislature already drives tuition rates in a sense, Skogen said. A funding model approved by lawmakers in 2013 is tied to completion of credit hours, allowing the system to show lawmakers what the range of tuition increases will be based on their appropriation, he said.
John Richman, president of the North Dakota State College of Science, echoed Skogen’s sentiment that the bill could limit student input into the process of setting tuition and fees. He asked lawmakers to at least amend the bill to allow campuses to set their own fees.
“Do you really want to set parking fees on 11 different campuses?” he said.
