As Chairman of the House Higher Education Budget Committee, my main goal is to continue to keep the cost of higher education affordable for our students and their families (heck, I’m one of those myself with two kids in college).
While the colleges and universities continue to ask for millions (and billions) that we cannot fund, we have been able to mitigate tuition increases for the past six years.
Currently, to offset their budget shortfalls, colleges are now taking in more out-of-state students and leaving ours behind. To help change that we have proposed a one year proviso that makes sure that IF they feel the need to raise tuition, it can only be on the new freshman classes and that any tuition charged that first year is the SAME tuition throughout their undergraduate career.
Some of the floor debate can be seen here in the video.