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Friday, March 29, 2024

On Tuesday, Gov. Rick Scott, in a somewhat surprising statement, said he did not support increasing tuition for students at Florida's colleges and universities.

This position puts the governor at odds with members of his own party in the legislature who are proposing an 8 percent increase in tuition.

Sen. Evelyn Lynn, R-Ormond Beach, chair of the budget subcommittee on higher education, told the Orlando Sentinel, "I have great concern because we're cutting back on dollars, and education has been cutting back every single year for the last four years now, and to come one more year when we have to reduce money and say ‘no tuition increases' is very difficult."

It appears that Lynn reflects the traditional Republican view that keeping tuition flat will likely place the burden of education costs on Florida taxpayers. She also believes that because Florida has one of the lowest tuition rates in the country, it has room to increase tuition to ease cuts elsewhere.

The governor said he believes increasing tuition would be the wrong thing to do, equating colleges to businesses that try to cut costs first before increasing prices. The problem is when the state has to balance the budget every year and has already cut a lot from higher education in Florida, something will have to give, putting taxpayers on the line.

This is not to say that we are supporting tuition hikes, because that is certainly not the case. The increasing cost of tuition each year is certainly a problem and could be remedied in other ways. We also realize, as we have argued in past editorials, that tuition increases are sometimes a necessary evil used to make up for the rising cost of education.

Perhaps we should look at the underlying reasons for annual increases in the cost of higher education before we continue to cut or increase tuition. Are standards for admission too low? Are federal subsidies driving up costs?

Regardless, what is most surprising from this budget battle is that the governor is pretty much siding with his arch nemesis, President Obama, on this issue. In his State of the Union address, the president came out strongly against further tuition increases, and Scott has echoed some of the same reasons, such as the idea that education should be affordable to everyone.

Could the governor be going against his party on the issue in order to soften his hardline image? If that is the case, we doubt it will make his opponents, many college students included, like him.

If anything, it will make him look like he's pandering to younger people for support rather than truly standing up for them against further tuition increases.

Whether or not he genuinely believes what he says, his position on this issue is probably not going to change the minds of many Floridians.

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