Students may need to dip further into their pockets this fall after House Bill 734, a tuition increase, was passed Wednesday in the Louisiana Senate.
The Bill, which would give the governing boards of the state’s public universities and colleges authority to increase their tuitions, was passed in the Senate with a 27-8 vote.
The Bill passed in the house this past week, 84-18, after a second vote.
The first time the Bill was introduced to the House floor June 2, it was two votes shy of the 70 required.
The tuition bill is now headed back to the House for concurrence with the amendments the Senate added.
The Bill authorizes tuition fees be adjusted for each university and college. For example, LSU’s main campus is expected to receive the full 5 percent tuition increase. Other universities in the LSU System, such as LSU-Eunice and LSU-Alexandria, may only receive a 3 percent increase.
If the tuition bill passes, the state will be required to compensate by increasing the TOPS award. Out-of-state students do not receive such a benefit.
House Bill 677, a bill which would give the LSU Board of Supervisors authority to increase the University’s operational fee, will also not be covered by TOPS.
The operational fee increase is still waiting on a vote from the House. It passed the House Education Committee on May 22 with a 13-2 vote.
LSU System President John Lombardi told The Daily Reveille on June 6 that unless the University’s tuition is not near the average of its competitors, the campus will not have the resources its students and faculty want.
“We have to have the tuition increase. Otherwise we’re not going to be able to get the quality that we want,” Lombardi said.
Student Government President Colorado Robertson said Wednesday he is not opposed to the tuition increase.
“We understand that tuition needs to go up at the same rate as inflation,” Robertson said. “We also have gotten things put in place that students will directly see on campus because of the fact that there’s increased tuition, such as extended library hours.”
The tuition increase will be expected to help, but not solve, the 5 percent budget cuts the University faces because of House Bill 1.
That legislation which determines the states fiscal budget for 2008-09, was passed in the Senate on Wednesday with a 37-1 vote and calls for a 5 percent decrease in state appropriations for LSU’s main campus.
The single dissenting vote from Sen. Neil Riser, R-Baton Rouge, was the only opposition the bill received from its travels through different committees and the House floor.
“We hope that the cuts will be restored and go back to the Southern Regional average,” Robertson said. “That 5 percent is something we need to stay competitive.”
—-Contact J.J. Alcantara at [email protected]