Cross post from
Yellow Dog Blog the official Texas Democratic Party weblog.
Last spring, I testified before the Texas House Higher Education Committee as a representative of the University of Texas at Austin Student Government and University Democrats about the negative impact tuition deregulation would have on middle class families. Fred Brown, Geanie Morrisson, Joe Nixon and Ken Mercer all rolled their eyes, talked down to us and then went on to ignore the University Democrats, the Young Conservatives of Texas and the Campus Greens, all united against tuition deregulation and voted for a scheme to tax our middle class families without giving them a recourse when the costs rose too high. Now, they are having buyer's remorse.
As predicted in an earlier editorial, some of the same Texas legislators who voted for higher education tuition deregulation are now upset because of so many public complaints about the resulting substantial increases.
The Legislative Oversight Committee on Higher Education conducted two days of hearings on the matter last week, and members seemed perplexed as to cause and effect. Consider a remark from Rep. Fred Brown, R-Bryan: "I'm just aggravated. I don't feel like we're getting a straight answer on anything."
Ditto from Rep. Lois Kolkhorst, R-Brenham, who during the hearing with various university representatives said she kept asking the "same questions, but I can't get the same answers."
Students at UT Austin (like Byron and myself) will pay an additional $720 a year by next fall. So far our friends down at Texas A&M will pay an extra $303 this year, Texas Tech students will pay an extra $878, University of North Texas students $746. So much for the GOP "No New Taxes" budget. I guess its too bad that oil companies don't have kids in college- maybe then we wouldn't have to listen to Fred Brown and others whine about the mess they've dragged us into.