Kansas Board of Regents met in Topeka today to address the budget crisis impacting university planning. Universities had been working on how to address the cuts in their budget, after Governor Brownback was forced to slice into students’ funding, in order to balance the budget after repeated revenue misses.
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Topeka — Gov. Sam Brownback signed a budget bill into law Wednesday while at the same time ordering $97 million in allotment cuts, mostly through cuts to higher education and Medicaid funding.
Those cuts amount to an average 4 percent reduction for most state agencies, except K-12 education and public safety services.
The cuts in university funding left little wiggle room for Kansas higher education, and in a meeting of the board of regents, the majority of Kansas’ schools that receive funds raised tuition, between 4.9% at Emporia State to 6% at Fort Hays State University.
The University of Kansas will increase tuition by 5% in the upcoming school year. This increase is higher than was originally sought, but with uncertainty about future funding from the state still up in the air, increases may only be a preview of what happens next.
The tuition increase will come as unwelcome news to students and parents, who find they pay a significantly higher price to attend college than planned, with no substantial university benefits. While students are often subject to rate increases, if student services or programs are increased or improved, at this point, students are simply paying a higher rate due to a failed tax experiment.
For young Kansans, the debt they generate now, in the 5% increase, will likely stick with them for a very long time, a constant reminder of how their state was governed when they attended a Kansas university.
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