Why is Texas tuition so high?

State lawmakers, university leaders debate why cost has ballooned

To any parent sending a student off to college in the fall, one thing is very clear: It’s going to be expensive. A lot more expensive than it was in Texas a decade ago.

Tuition and fees at the state’s public colleges have more than doubled since 2003, when the Legislature gave universities the authority to set their own prices. On average, Texas college students paid $8,256 a year in tuition and fees in 2015, up from $3,361 in 2003.

What is less clear, however, is who bears the blame for those rising costs.

Some state lawmakers blame university leaders who they think spend too much on administration and too little in the classroom. College leaders are quick to point out that state funding hasn’t kept pace with inflation and isn’t enough to make Texas universities more competitive nationally.

The blame game isn’t exclusive to Texas. University leaders and politicians across the country are also pointing fingers at one another over the burgeoning cost of attending college.

The back and forth was on full display Tuesday when Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick, a Houston Republican, blasted college leaders for raising tuition by 147 percent since 2003. During that time, the median household income statewide rose by just 32 percent, Patrick said. Sixtytwo percent of students graduate with college debt — $30,000 on average for

those who earned a bachelor’s degree.

“We are pricing the average family out of a college education in the state of Texas,” Patrick said during a news conference in Austin. “This has to end.”

His comments came before a daylong meeting of a Senate higher education panel tasked with finding ways to curb college costs. The state’s university leaders defended recent tuition increases to the committee.

Weathering the cuts

Patrick and state Sen. Kel Seliger, who chairs the committee, also criticized universities for failing to graduate students quickly enough, questioning whether colleges are using their money appropriately. Patrick claimed that administrative costs at universities have risen 149 percent since 2003, while classroom costs have increased just 65 percent.

Patrick and Seliger called for the state to require universities to meet certain benchmarks to earn tuition increases. An effort to do so in the last legislative session gained traction but did not become law. Many who spoke during Tuesday’s hearing, university leaders included, voiced support for such a measure.

According to the Texas higher education coordinating board, state funding for public universities declined by 27 percent from 2003 to 2015 when adjusting for inflation. Tuition and fee revenue increased by 91 percent during that time, when also adjusting for inflation.

The ability of college leaders to set their own tuition has helped them weather periods of state funding cutbacks, including the deep budget cuts of 2011, university officials said.

“Tuition deregulation has been the buffer that has allowed us to remain competitive … especially in times of cuts,” said Robert Duncan, the chancellor of the Texas Tech University System.

‘Not being accountable’

But Patrick stressed Tuesday that tuition has risen even when the state has boosted higher education funding. He and other lawmakers touted a 9-percent increase in higher education spending approved in the 2015 legislative session.

University leaders expressed their appreciation for the additional money, but said it was barely enough to cover increasing operating costs. Texas colleges also wrangle with costly tuition exemptions approved by the Legislature, such as the Hazlewood Act, which covers college costs for veterans and their children. The act, which was expanded in 2009, cost Texas public universities $169 million in tuition revenue in 2014.

“The Legislature also needs to be accountable. When we talk about a 9-percent increase and we all break our arms patting ourselves on the back … but it only amounts to a 1 percent increase because of growth (in colleges’ operating costs) ... we’re not being accountable,” state Sen. Kirk Watson, an Austin Democrat, said. “When it comes down to the blame game, it ought to be us. We are the ones that ought to be blamed if we aren’t looking at the whole picture and doing it right.”

Pursuing gold standard

Getting Texas universities to compete nationally, a goal for almost everyone involved in discussions of state higher education, will require more money — whether that comes from tuition or from the state — University of Texas System Chancellor William McRaven told the committee.

Each year, roughly 19,000 high school graduates leave Texas for colleges in other states, where they likely pay much higher tuition bills as out-ofstate students, McRaven said. California has nine universities in the American Association of Universities, a group of 62 colleges viewed by many as the gold standard in higher education, while Texas has just three.

Many poor students

Texas students and parents aren’t alone in grappling with growing tuition bills. Nationally, state funding for public colleges decreased 12 percent overall between 2003 and 2012, while the median tuition at those schools rose 55 percent, according to the U.S. Government Accountability Office.

But Texas still ranks near the middle of the pack in terms of college costs. The state’s commissioner of higher education told the senate panel that college remains cheaper in Texas than in 30 other states.

Still, 60 percent of students heading to college from Texas public high schools are poor, commissioner Raymund Paredes said.

“We have to make sure that higher education remains affordable,” Paredes told the committee. “Right now, it still is. But we’ve got to do better.”