The Legislature Giveth, & The Legislature Can Take Away

    South Carolina families had better get ready for state colleges to reach deeper into students' pockets to pay the cost of their education.

    Lottery profits are sagging, and within the next year or two, the General Assembly may put a cap on how much taxpayer money they are willing to add to the pot to keep college scholarship eligibility and awards at today's levels. When the lawmakers reach their limit, there are just two ways to limit the cost: either reduce the number of people who can get the scholarships, or reduce the amount of the individual grants.

    Then there is the looming economic downturn. Rep. Chip Limehouse, the chairman of the higher education subcommittee of the House Ways and Means Committee, warned college presidents this week to plan for budget cuts ranging from 5 percent to 10 percent in their spending plans for the financial year that will begin July 1, 2008. To illustrate the distance between the institutions and lawmakers on next year's state spending, both the University of South Carolina and Clemson University asked for $20 million additional dollars for operations next year.

South Carolina's Legislature has not been as generous to state colleges, or their students, in recent years as have other states. South Carolina already has the highest state college tuition in the region. For example, according to the Chronicle of Higher Education, the average in-state undergraduate tuition and fees in Florida is $2,941, versus $7,337 in South Carolina.

South Carolina's state colleges have been raising their academic standards in recent years, and the public response has been more and better qualified students apply for admission. The institutions are going to guard their gains in academic reputation jealously. That also means protecting their budgets, which they see as a vital tool to continue improving their reputations. But someone must pay for those improvements. If state appropriations shrink, the only place they can go to make up the shortfall is the student body.

Unless the colleges and the General Assembly make an affordable college education a priority, the cost of attending a state college will remain the highest in the Southeast, and climb even higher.