Bob Mercer defines watchdog journalism this morning by barking at a vo-tech fee increase the state Board of Education is discussing right now in Sioux Falls. Evidently, after winning a funding increase from the Legislature on the promise that they wouldn't increase tuition this year, the vo-techs want to increase the fees students pay per credit hour by 3%. Under the proposal, the FY2015 total tuition and fees would be 26% higher than they were in FY 2011.
Mr. Mercer seems displeased:
This will be done without any public notice, other than reading the meeting documents, and without an advertised public hearing. Let’s hope the Legislature is paying attention. Last time I checked, the lawmakers return to the Capitol on March 31 for the final day of the 2014 regular session. Maybe it’s time to require public hearings for all fee increases by state boards and commissions [Bob Mercer, "State Board Might Raise Student Fees (in Year of No Tuition Increase…)," Pure Pierre Politics, 2014.03.24].
If I'm reading correctly, House Bill 1142 is the vo-tech funding increase the Legislature approved. It still awaits Governor Dennis Daugaard's signature.
His comments regarding lack of public notice are on point, but it isn't fair or even accurate to put the Board of Regents and the technical institutes on the same plane regarding the tuition actions and the representations made during the session. It took me a few minutes to find and confirm my memory, but slide 26 of the Governor’s budget address from December, here: http://bfm.sd.gov/budget/rec15/Budget_Speech_2015_Slides.pdf does NOT refer to a tuition “freeze” for the technical institutes. They do refer to a tuition “buy-down” and the Governor verbally refers to a buy-down of $5 per credit hour for them. In comparison, he DOES refer to a tuition “freeze” for in-state students only for the Board of Regents institutions.
Government gets a bad enough rap without us misrepresenting one of the few small steps this legislature took toward addressing a huge underfunding problem for our technical institutes.
Hang on, Rep. Wismer: is Mr. Mercer incorrect to say that the goal was no increase in tuition? He refers to the "buy-down", and he does not seem to refer to the Regents.
Governor Daugaard seemed to put the vo-tech tuition situation on the same plane as the Regental tuition freeze in his December 3, 2013, budget address:
"Similarly, I am recommending a Technical Institute tuition buy-down of $1 million cost. I am proposing that $1 million buy-down tuition at the Technical Institutes up to $5/credit hour. It’s similar in application to the way the Board of Regents will help hold down tuition. Similarly this will allow the Technical Institutes to hold down tuition."
I guess the question here is whether the Legislature and the Governor approved the funding increase on the understanding the the vo-tech schools would not increase the cost of vo-tech education this year.
Representative Wismer, I've c + p'd a brief table that I posted above for your consideration. It compares SD's mean/median wages with those of each of our bordering states. Would you comment on your impressions and intentions to address this imbalance if elected? Here's the table from a BLS site published in 2012: SD's average (mean) wage is 17.32 and median wage is 13.99. Using the same BLS site, compare that to MN's 22.42/17.74 and IA's 19.02/15.33. Throw in NE's 19.00/15.01, and just for good measure look at WY's 20.76/17.67, MT's 18.29/14.49 and ND's 19.64/16.40.
Watch for the regents to do the same thing. In the total cost of college, the tuition is reasonable. It is all the fees that cause college costs and vocational training costs to be higher than needed. Higher education costs have increased by at least twice the cost of inflation.