No full faith and credit from Austin

Under the current Republican-controlled Texas Legislature, the public has seen an abomination taking place in higher education, where those in charge have failed to put their full faith and (most importantly) credit behind two programs – the Texas Tomorrow Fund and B On Time – aimed at helping students advance toward college degrees.
By their actions and votes, Austin lawmakers think it is more important for blind people to own guns, or toll our public roads to death, or to sanctify the hamburger, than allow students to gain access to state universities and colleges. They now renege on the prior agreements made with the citizenry, and tell the public that only the privileged will have financial access to higher education at a time when increased learning, not less, is needed for society’s future growth.
The Texas Tomorrow Fund Guaranteed Tuition Program was established in 1996, to permit Texan families to lock down the cost of future college tuition and fees (five years’ worth of tuition and fees ant any state university) at current prices (at the time of agreement) for their children, either by installment payments or paying a lump sum – all tax-free. As originally envisioned, parents could enroll their children at any age.
It sounded like an excellent deal for people to plan for a child’s future education, and some 158,000 contracts were executed. TTF garnered assets of some $1.6 billion (yes, with a “B”), making it one of the state’s largest investment funds.
But poor financial planning by the state and the trickery that the legislators employed (massive diversion of ALL program funding, from state parks to gasoline taxes used to fix the roads) to deal with a budget deficit (while still trying to provide for some imaginary property tax cut).
So, in the summer of 2003, the Legislature closed TTF to newcomers and, at the same time, approved the dirtiest word in Texas education – deregulation. Austin gave the state’s 35 colleges and universities an open invitation to increase tuition at whatever level they felt like (until then the Legislature set the rates), and lo and behold, what result was a record hike in those fees – more than 40 percent over the last four years.
TTF can only pay tuition that is less than the average, not more. That means the more expensive institutions must cover the difference out of their own funds. In 2005, the six largest Texas universities had to pony up with $7 million to cover the difference for students using the Tomorrow Fund, according to the Comptroller’s report.
Now, TTF is underfunded by some $3.3 billion, according to the Comptroller’s office and TTF remains closed to anyone trying to open an account. In fact, so short-sighted has been the Legislature in its handling of this programs that TTF won’t be able to cover tuition payment through … 2029.
And now we have major problems with the B On Time Loan program, which provides eligible Texas students with no-interest loans to attend state colleges and universities. If a student meets a set of standards and specific goals, the entire loan amount can be forgiven upon graduation.
A BOT loan disappears (but appears as taxable income to the IRS so no one gets off Scot-free) if the student earns an undergraduate degree or certificate from an eligible institution with a grade point average of 3.0 or more (on a 4.0 scale), and does it in four years (five years for engineering, architecture students or other advance degree programs) or two years for community college degrees.
Alas, the dear ole Legislature fooled around and made changes to BOT’s funding for 2008-09 and there isn’t enough money provided to the Texas Higher Education Coordinating Board to fund all the loans already approved and promised to incoming students. In fact, notification of this shortcoming only was sent to prospective students a few weeks before the start of school. Because of the budgetary dilly-dallying in Austin, the two schedules (application process approval and financial notification) didn’t jive.
When you combine all this with the alteration of the 10 percent admission policy (which allowed for the top 10 percent of any high school’s graduating class to have priority for state college admission), it becomes fairly clear that higher education in Texas will only be the province of the rich. Graduates form rural communities, and especially small-town minorities, have been placed behind the economic eight-ball when compared to the wealthier, and far more whining, suburbanites, who all too often believe that a place at UT or A&M is theirs by some sort of divine right because of their address.
Such policies and priorities are just wrong, and it is time for the public to recognize it, be vigilant and change the representation in Austin – to bring in people with priorities that actually benefit more than just a precious few.
And THAT cannot be done unless you actually VOTE to change the faces sent to Austin. Unless such policies are just fine with you and, if that is the case, I feel sorry for your vision of this state’s future.