Burnt Orange Report

I guess this means y'all won't be buying out Mack Brown's contract anytime soon. :)

I've seen that the costs of running colleges and universities has been rising faster than inflation in recent years, but I've yet to see a good description of where the costs are coming from.

Jim,

Out of curiousity, what is tuition currently running at at UT, before the increase?

Sherk

I am glad I graduated from UT (1988) when it was still $12/hr for in-state tuition. Is there nothing good and pure that Republicans won't ruin?

Well, I know that tuition at UT is just too high, but lets also think about the other UT schools who's tuition has always been pretty affordable for the region. UTEP (Univ. of Texas El Paso, home of the Legendary '66 NCAA Basektball Champs) is going to one or THE HIGHEST increase percentage of all the UT schools (I haven’t read any of the proceedings today, so I still don’t know, the idea is that UTEP's tuition hike will be 26% to 28%). Tuition dereg did not only hurt those UT students at Austin, but it also hurts the communities like El Paso who have benefited from low tuition rates. Sen. Shapleigh (www.shapleigh.org) has a comparison chart of all the tuition hikes at UT schools.

(Since I cant do a table in this comment, each item is described respectfully)

Public University
Current Cost
Proposed Increase Spring
Proposed Increase Fall
Overall Increase in 2004
Overall Percentage Increase

Arlington
$1,852
$1,972($10/hr.)
$2,176 ($17/hr.)
$324
17.5%

Austin
$2,716 (15 hrs.)
$3,076
$3,506
$720
26.5%

Brownsville
$1,192
$0
$1,378 ($6/hr.)
$186
15.6%

Dallas
$2,140
$2,380 ($20/hr.)
$2,668 ($20/hr.)
$528
24.7%

El Paso
$1,483
$1,699 ($18/hr.)
$1,892 ($14/hr.)
$409
27.6%

Pan American
$1,233
$0
$1,329 ($6/hr.)
$96
8%

Permian Basin
$1,394
$1,454 ($5/hr.)
$1,562 ($9/hr.)
$168
12.1%

San Antonio
$1,730
$1,910 ($15/hr.)
$2,165 ($15/hr.)
$435
25.1%

Tyler
$1,436
$1,508 ($6/hr.)
$1,652 ($10/hr.)
$216
15%

I know my UT friends, it's a sad day when the goals of affordable public education have been shattered by the GOP AND UT REGENTS idea of tuition dereg.

BTW, thanks for the neat graphic, I've put it on our University Dems Office window! Also, if you dont mind, I'll put it on our website (changing the UT horns to a UTEP mining pike tool thing)

The Repulican dominated Lege knew exactly what it was doing. They knew this was going to happen and now they're just trying to make the UT's and other schools around the state out to be the bad guys. The goal of the Republicans is to create a desparate work force for their corporate friends. A work force that will work for lower wages and fewer benefits. In GW's world, the rich deserve to get richer while the poor deserve to get poorer. It's a wacky Jesus thing.

Blake

While I was at UT — my best guess is Fall 1976 or 1977 — some very funny satirists ran for student government offices on the "Arts and Sausages" ticket. I wish I had some of their campaign literature, but I do remember two of the key points in their party platform:

1. Abolish student government; and

2. Sandblast the "And ye shall know the truth" motto from the front of the Main Building and replace it with something both pithy and apt — "Money talks."

They won, and student government was briefly abolished IIRC, but reinstated by the yuppie tidal wave two or three years later.

Ummm, guys, what are you complaining about? It appears that tuition at the UT is running around $2,000 a semester, give or take, even after the increases. That is dirt cheap. My undergrad was considerably higher than that, at a Midwestern liberal arts college, as are most universities. It might be nice, but you don't have a right to a taxpayer handout, particularly since workers with a college degree are likely to earn quite a bit more as a result of the education. Why should the taxpayer be asked to heavily subsidize something that will provide so much personal financial benefit to its recipients, even w/o the subsidy.

Sherk

Its great that you went to a Midwest liberal school, and I'm sorry that you paid a large sum to go there, but it was your decision, you could have shopped around. Also, I would ask if that Midwest school was public or private, and remember out of state tuition is a lot more than in state, unless you become a resident (reason I moved from the Univ. of New Mexico in Albuquerque back home to UTEP, HELL No was I going to lose my Texas Residency!)

Texans and our state government crated an interest in a quality higher public education system as per the Texas Constitution states in Art. VII, Sec. 1
"A general diffusion of knowledge being essential to the preservation of the liberties and rights of the people, it shall be the duty of the Legislature of the State to establish and make suitable provision for the support and maintenance of an efficient system of public free schools." Likewise, in Art. VII, Sec 10: "The legislature shall as soon as practicable establish, organize and provide for the maintenance, support and direction of a University of the first class, to be located by a vote of the people of this State, and styled, "The University of Texas," for the promotion of literature, and the arts and sciences, including an Agricultural, and Mechanical department. "

The state is supposed to support higher education, and one way to support it is though an affordable method for the public to receive an education. Wouldn’t be nice for once that our state government in Texas would support and be number 1 in education funding rather than number one in corrections and prisons?

What makes me angry and makes me a democrat is that Conservative ideology focuses just on the "I", while I see the destruction "we". The "we" ideology focuses that your taxes benefit everyone though investing in education, public health, and higher education, or what we had before. Taxes are an investment, and not a burden, but they become a burden by dumb moves like cutting education and health care funding because local taxes have to rise. If this state could create a tax system like the state income tax provision in the constitution that would cut 2/3 of property taxes and 1/3 dedicated only to education, we could see the this burden lifted.

As stated, conservatives have destroyed the "we" and placed the mentality of the people "I", tax cuts are good, and services bad. The people who suffer because of that are the regular people of Texas, both poor and the middle classes. In this case, Texas Republicans shown that they could care less investing in Higher Ed by keeping rates low to allow the chance that a person in border Texas (one of the poorest areas of this state) have the opportunity to receive a higher education. Once higher education truly becomes a business as the current regents and the GOP want, education is lost.

As a student who goes to the other UT, without tuition regulation, UTEP and the other UT border schools could and cannot compete with the bigger UT schools. Tuition could have been equal across the states if every school would have let it raise it self to the maximum allowed by the state. Now with deregulation, UT can raise their prices 50% and still have a population of 30,000 because it’s a top university in the nation, yet if UTEP would raise 50%, you would see the 18,000 drop to 10,000. Luckily, no one had declared to raise tuition 50%, but they can with tuition dereg.

I just did a search for "Arts and Sausages" on "google" and Beldar's post was the only thing that came up.

I was a UT student at the time and the campaign was great entertainment. The people behind the Arts and Sausages did some incredibly funny things, as well as slapstick type stuff (one slogan was "Men of Vision making spectacles of themselves."

They held a "Nobody for President" rally with slogans like "Nobody loves you when you are down and out." "Nobody can succeed in politics while keeping his hands clean."

They had a "Sermon on the Fount" with lines like "blessed are the geeks for they will inherit the university."