Floyd nixes locked-rate tuition plan
Published Nov. 29, 2005
UM system President Elson Floyd said today that he would not recommend to the UM system Board of Curators a proposal to lock students' tuition for the length of their degree programs. Without Floyd's recommendation, it is not likely the board will take up the policy.
Instead, Floyd will discuss with the board a plan to restrict tuition increases to the rate of inflation as long as the growth of state funding matches inflation, according to a news release.
The news release stated that Floyd would discuss the new plan with the Board of Curators at their meeting in Kansas City on Thursday and Friday.
"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 the news release. "While some, especially parents, liked the idea of guaranteed tuition as a way to budget with greater confidence, I more frequently heard challenges to the concept."
UM system spokesman Joe Moore said several factors led Floyd to forgo recommending the policy to the university's governing board.
"Students were concerned the tuition would be too great for incoming freshman," Moore said.
Because administrators could not raise the tuition of current students under the locked-rate tuition plan, many student leaders feared that incoming freshman would have to bear any tuition increases.
Other citizens also questioned if the plan was feasible.
"Business leaders wondered if it would be too difficult to project state appropriations over a four-to-five-year period," Moore said. He said state appropriations had dropped during the past five fiscal years.
At the Board of Curator's October meeting, two of the four UM system chancellors, from the University of Missouri-Rolla and the University of Missouri-Kansas City, expressed their opposition to the proposal. MU officials also opposed the plan.
At the same meeting, officials from the Associated Students of the University of Missouri - a student lobbying organization - also said they opposed the plan.
Floyd first asked the Board of Curators to consider the locked-rate tuition plan in June. He spent several months traveling around the state gathering citizens' opinions about the plan.