Judge- UM illegally charged tuition to in-state students

ST. LOUIS -- A St. Louis judge has ruled that the University of Missouri violated state law for 15 years by charging tuition to in-state, undergraduate students throughout the system.

St. Louis County Circuit Judge Kenneth Romines did not award any damages to thousands of students who attended the campuses in Columbia, Rolla, Kansas City and St. Louis between 1986 and last year.

Romines found against the Board of Curators of the University of Missouri and in favor of three students who filed a class-action lawsuit.

The suit and Romines' ruling is based on an obscure law that the legislature passed 63 years ago. It says qualified youths living in Missouri and over the age of 16 shall not be charged tuition for undergraduate programs.

During last year's trial, university president Manuel T. Pacheco testified that the refunds sought by the plaintiffs would total $450 million and have a devastating effect on the university.

At the hearing, Pacheco tried to argue that the university charged educational fees and such fees were different from tuition.

'Pure pretense'

In his order Friday, Romines wrote that "Dr. Pacheco's testimony was nothing more than pure pretense, incredible, and sadly not believable."

The judge said that educational fees and tuition are the same.

In 1986, the Board of Curators adopted a policy of charging resident Missouri undergraduates an "educational fee" for each credit hour at the schools in the system. Before that, the university charged flat fees for school expenses that had no direct relation to classes students took.

The change in 1986 violated the law the legislature adopted in 1939 providing for free tuition, Romines said.

The legislature last year passed, and Gov. Bob Holden signed, a law allowing the university system to charge and collect "tuition and other fees."

University lawyers had argued that the 1939 statute had been repealed by implication because school budgets each year are approved by the Board of Curators, by the Coordinating Board for Higher Education, by the governor and by the legislature. Pacheco testified that no legislator had ever asked him to eliminate education fees; some have suggested that students pay more.

Nonresidents pay the full cost of their education; resident students in undergraduate programs pay about one-third of the cost, the balance being subsidized by taxpayers.

University lawyers were reviewing their options, including the possibility of an appeal.