In Austin, Higher Education Is Not a Priority
By Josh Matlock
Fri, 02/09/2007 - 2:17pm
No matter what you hear, no matter what they say, higher education is not a priority. They like to talk about how important it is, but when it comes down to doling out the money, higher education just never seems to reach the level of priority of, say, property tax cuts.
Approximately $12 billion is slated for cutting property taxes, leaving merely $1 billion for prisons, parks, social services, and higher education combined. Texas universities should receive $300 million of the $1 billion available. This is not enough. Utilizing current state tuition formulas, many universities like Midwestern State will be forced to raise tuition. Jesse Rogers, Midwestern State's president, says state funding has steadily declined since 1998.
With the state contributing less and less to the university till, the shortfall and burden is shifted to students. Unless there is a significant attitude adjustment at the capital, no matter what you hear, no matter what they say, higher education is not and will not be a priority.
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Pulling Up The Ladder
By Patrick M McLeod
Fri, 02/09/2007 - 8:54pm
When I was younger, my dad always told me that Republicans were people who had made something of themselves and then spent the rest of their lives pulling the ladder up behind them so that no one else could infringe on their earnings.
Gradually, but with certainty, we're going back to the pre-World War II model of higher education that excluded the working class and the lower middle class. One of the most unsung successful social programs enacted in the history of modern America, the G.I. Bill, opened up college education to folks who couldn't even get a foot in the door before the war.
Here in Texas, what we're seeing is the return of higher education to an exclusively middle- and upper-class opportunity, cleverly done by cutting taxes in order to defund it. Classic Norquist politics.
I can't help but believe that part of the success of this plan here in Texas is due to the Texas Republican Party's (and the wider radical conservative movement here in Texas) effective gaming of the "town versus gown" divide.