University of Missouri president abandons plan to freeze tuition

~ Elson Floyd has a new proposal to lock tuition increases to the rate of inflation.

COLUMBIA, Mo. -- University of Missouri president Elson Floyd is scrapping his plan to freeze tuition rates for new students at the system's four campuses, instead proposing to tie any increases to inflation rates.

The new proposal comes with a pretty hefty caveat, though: Financial support from the state must keep pace with inflation or tuition rates would rise even higher.

The announcement Tuesday followed a statewide "listening tour" over the summer, during which Floyd visited 16 Missouri cities and towns. Concerns voiced at those meetings over the disproportionate impact of a tuition freeze on current students helped persuade Floyd to pursue another approach.

"I have said from the beginning that guaranteeing tuition was not an idea that I would support without Missourians' stamp of approval," Floyd said in a news release.

Floyd was not available Tuesday for further comment, a spokesman said. And university curators -- who will formally consider the new proposal later this week at a meeting in Kansas City -- said they want to hear from Floyd directly before discussing the plan.

'Has to be a balance'

But curator Don Walsworth reinforced a pivotal message contained in Floyd's announcement: State legislators have an equally strong duty to keep the escalating costs of higher education from spiraling out of control.

"The thing we have to do as a board of curators is to make education affordable. That's our charge," Walsworth said. "And the state has to partner with us. There has to be a balance."

The gauntlet thrown by Walsworth and Floyd comes just weeks after state Commissioner of Higher Education Greg Finch asked leaders of Missouri's public colleges and universities to prepare for possible budget cuts of up to 10 to 12 percent in response to a "serious budget shortfall."

Floyd responded that such a shortfall could reduce the university system's budget by as much as $46 million and lead to nearly 600 job cuts.

House Speaker Pro Tem Carl Bearden, R-St. Charles, said he "applauded President Floyd for at least being brave enough" to float potential solutions to the problem of rising tuition rates. But the state's fiscal realities suggest Floyd's latest approach also won't be workable, Bearden added.

"Tying any tuition increases to state appropriations keeping up with the rate of inflation is an approach not likely to happen," he said. "The available funds are just not there."

Instead, Bearden said, the University of Missouri and other public universities in the state need to tighten efforts to trim excess spending elsewhere in the organization.

Curator Doug Russell, who is also chairman of the state Republican Party, concurred.

"There's a danger for us to fall into a trap of automatically raising tuition," he said. "I have some concerns about the [proposed] policy and some questions."

Throughout his barnstorming tour, Floyd emphasized that the notion of a tuition freeze was not a formal proposal but rather an idea worthy of a public sounding board.

Semantics aside, the idea would have guaranteed a single tuition rate for incoming freshmen as well as other enrolled undergraduates at the Columbia, St. Louis, Rolla and Kansas City campuses for the remainder of their courses of study.

Out-of-state students would also have paid locked tuition, although at higher rates.

Floyd cited steady -- and unpredictable -- increases in tuition rates as the motivation behind his proposal.

Since 1993, tuition for in-state students at the four campuses increased an average of 8.3 percent annually. Those increases included a 14.8 percent jump in 2002 and a 19.8 percent jump in 2003.

At the same time, state support for the four campuses was reduced by a total of $148 million over the past five years.

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