Ed Policy Wonkette Post: Flagship Autonomy Comes to Louisiana

Seriously, Bobby Jindal? You want to give LSU Baton Rouge the ability to set its own tuition and charge a “flagship fee?”

This article from nola.com discusses Jindal’s support for greater autonomy in tuition policy among LSU campuses, starting (it seems) with LSU’s main campus in Baton Rouge. Whether or not other campuses will have the same autonomy as what is being proposed for LSU’s main campus is unclear.

Ok, Gov. Jindal, stop for a second and look at what has gone on in the SUNY system since 2008. (See my last post). LSU is different because there is a designated flagship, but public institutions making private decisions about tuition policy makes me nervous. And a “flagship fee” of indeterminate size on top of all the other student fees makes me really nervous.

I also wonder what will happen to access when the price tag of a public institution rises.  It’s no secret that the public universities are in dire financial straights here in Louisiana, but differentiated tuition should only be one of the possible solutions being considered and the consequences need to assessed before moving forward.

Rational tuition policies have planned incremental increases, not fees of indeterminate amounts.

Ed Policy Wonkette Post: SUNY and the State Legislature

The Chronicle of Higher Education is reporting that the State University of New York (SUNY) system will adjust its legislative priorities. The aggressive reforms seeking greater autonomy of individual campuses which were championed by now out-going University at Buffalo president, John Simpson, may be abandoned by the SUNY system.

Michael C. Trunzo, SUNY vice-chancellor for government relations said the reforms of the SUNY Empowerment bill would be shelved. Other SUNY representatives have indicated that Trunzo was not speaking for the system when he announced the empowerment bill would be abandoned in favor of a bill proposing a rational tuition policy for the system.

Rational tuition (small predictable increases) would make much more sense for SUNY than allowing the individual colleges/universities to charge differentiated tuition. Dr. Bruce Johnstone wanted a rational tuition policy when he was SUNY Chancellor in the late 1980s/early 1990s– maybe it will finally happen.

Can you image the bidding war that Buffalo, Binghamton, Albany, and Stony Brook would have gotten into if these schools could set their own tuition? In an attempt to be seen as the “flagship” I suspect the prestige pricing would have quickly gotten out of control. (For those not familiar with SUNY, unlike other university systems there is no one flagship. There are 64 institutions with varied missions and identities ranging from community colleges and technical schools to comprehensive colleges and research universities. I have attended two of them: SUNY College at Plattsburgh and the University at Buffalo).

Sometimes I am glad SUNY policies are a matter of state policy