State: Panel: Gut prepaid tuition plan

TALLAHASSEE -- A state education panel on Tuesday recommended drastic cutbacks in financial aid that would make it more expensive for middle class students to attend Florida's public universities.

If approved by the state Legislature, the recommendations would all but eliminate the popular Florida Prepaid College Plan, although existing contracts would be honored. Students also would be offered less money to pay for tuition through the lottery-funded Bright Future scholarships.

While proposing cuts in financial aid that would save the state millions, the panel suggested dramatically increasing tuition at Florida's public universities and community colleges over the next decade. The panel said the tuition increases could be perhaps as much as 10 percent each year, until tuition reaches the national average.

"Resources are very limited, and we're going to have to shift some of the burden," Education Secretary Jim Horne said. "It's going to have to shift to students who could and should be paying more."

The Higher Education Funding Advisory Council, appointed by Horne, spent a year studying how higher education is funded in Florida. The 19-member panel endorsed the controversial recommendations Tuesday as a way to help the state with its growing budget crisis.

The Florida Board of Education, which oversees all education in the state, will consider the proposals next week and forward final recommendations to the Legislature.

None of the recommendations suggest increasing the tax dollars devoted to higher education.

Florida students pay less than 25 percent of the cost of educating them, even though tuition has increased every year for the past seven years. And Florida continues to have one of the lowest tuitions in the nation.

Florida university tuition is $2,691 a year; the national average is $4,260. Florida community college tuition is $1,525 a year; the national average is $1,807.

"It's absolutely sinful for us to close our eyes and keep our tuition low," said member Art Keiser, president of Keiser College, a private vocational institution.

Other recommendations include:

-- Using at least 20 percent of tuition and fee increases to aid students in financial need.

-- Contributing a portion of Bright Futures money to need-based scholarships.

-- Considering opening new four-year universities to ease crowding and accommodate the growing number of people seeking admission.

But the biggest changes would occur in popular tuition programs: Bright Futures, which pays for all or most of tuition for about 120,000 students in Florida, and the Florida Prepaid College Plan, which allows people to pay for tuition and fees for a future college education at today's prices.

The group suggested giving individual public universities the authority to control their own tuition. That would essentially bankrupt the popular prepaid tuition program, because it doesn't anticipate such huge jumps in tuition.

"You are making a big mistake -- socially, morally, ethically," said member Stanley Tate, chairman of the Florida Prepaid College Board, the lone but vocal dissenter. "If you adopt this, it is over. You are making it difficult for lower and middle income families of this state."

Tate said the program's future is uncertain, but could possibly last four more years with the $379-million it has in reserves. All 733,000 existing contracts will be honored.

Horne acknowledged that the program would likely end.

"It would blow it out," he said of the panel's recommendations. "It would blow it apart."

But Horne and panel member Sandy Murman, a Republican legislator from Tampa, said they would try to devise a new prepaid program to help poor students, who make up about 30 percent of those in the program now.

Since it was created five years ago, Bright Futures has become Florida's largest financial aid program. That's because it pays most or all of the tuition costs of any Florida student who gets good grades in high school.

The program is expected to cost nearly $219-million this year, up from $75-million 1997-98 when 43,309 students were enrolled.

Panel member Sandy D'Alemberte, president of Florida State University, suggested eliminating Bright Futures altogether and spending the money on need-based scholarships instead.

"We're giving a lot of support to people who don't need it," he said.

The group recommended using a new formula that would pay for some tuition for scholarship recipients based on community college tuition, and not university tuition, no matter where a student attends school.

There would be no change for about 25 percent of Bright Futures students who get all their tuition reimbursed. But the remaining students, who get 75 percent of their tuition paid, would be given less money -- 100 percent of community college tuition.

The state estimates that would save about $35-million if the changes began in the 2004-05 academic year; about $45-million in 2005-06; and $60-million 2006-07.

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Lucy Morgan

From the Times state desk