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Opinion
 

Staff Editorial

                            Matt Dulin                             Tony Hernandez 
                Jim Parsons             Dusti Rhodes           Blake Whitaker

Texas A&M's blame game isn't the full story

There's a side effect of tuition deregulation that we apparently have overlooked: the blame game.

Officials at Texas A&M University recently told their students that future tuition increases are directly linked to how much funding the state guarantees for the next two years. While it's partially true, it's also a cop-out. 

Public universities pull funds from a variety of sources, like private donations and endowments; the state is not their only benefactor. Higher education funding is not so simple as a lawmaker's vote or a governor's signature; there are more factors at play.

But it seems Texas A&M would like to transfer the blame to the state anyway, even though it's largely up to the university as to how much tuition should increase. Only Texas A&M officials know how they are running their finances, and state funding is increasingly determined by a university's performance in many areas, like graduation rates. 

Texas A&M has formulated three potential tuition hikes of 3, 6 and 16 percent, with each commensurate with the amount of funding it receives from the state. Of course, what hasn't been proposed is scaling back spending to keep increases moderate. After all, it's A&M, and they deserve a healthy check from the state, right?

It's never been a question of whether tuition should increase, but a question of how often and how much. In a deregulated system, there are a lot of factors to consider. In any case, it's not the state's fault. As much as we'd like for the Legislature to guarantee more funds for higher education, specifically for UH, it's just not that easy. 

Students at A&M and around the state need not blame Austin for their tuition complaints. No matter the circumstances, universities are culpable for every increase in direct cost to students. The fact of the matter is tuition will keep going up as state funding stagnates or continues to diminish, and universities are going to have to find alternate sources of funds that don't include reaching deeper into our pocketbooks.