A scheme to make legislators look good by guaranteeing Florida's prepaid tuition program ignores the ongoing crisis in education funding.
Published January 19, 2004
In asking to guarantee the prepaid tuition for all students who will one day attend Florida's public universities, House Democrats see a clear lane to an election-year slam dunk. They can give comfort to families who are planning for their educational future while not having to appropriate a single tax dollar.
Isn't that the game best played by their Republicans counterparts?
The Florida Prepaid College Program is hugely successful, with some 900,000 contracts and $5.3-billion in assets, but the Democrats want more assurances for families. The state now fully guarantees any contract, should the Prepaid Program default, for any student who is within five years of starting college. (Otherwise the families get their money back with a small interest payment.) Democrats would extend that full guarantee to the day a contract is purchased, no matter the age of the child.
Such a change certainly keeps faith with families who have invested in prepaid education, which is proper for state government to do. But it ignores the extent to which the Legislature has broken faith with tens of thousands of students who are being turned away at community colleges and universities that are too full and broke to accept them. The Prepaid Program is worried about delivering on future contracts because the Legislature has been so cheap that universities are forced to hike tuitions to make up the difference. As tuitions soar, the prepaid actuarial assumptions fly out the window.
The Prepaid Program is not the only financial aid threatened by Florida's uninspired education budget. As tuition climbs, so does the cost of Bright Futures scholarships, which cover most or all of the tuition for Florida students who do well in high school. In the past five years, Bright Futures payouts have tripled, to roughly $235-million. Those mounting financial aid costs also come at a time when the Legislature generally refuses to increase the overall budgetary commitment to colleges. That means each new dollar to Bright Futures is a dollar lost to the operational subsidy colleges would otherwise receive. No wonder university presidents are scratching their heads.
The Democratic prepaid guarantee plan isn't likely to go far in the Republican-dominated Legislature, just as Democrats - and moderate Senate Republicans - haven't gotten far in their attempts to invest more money in universities. But the solvency of the Prepaid Program is merely a symptom of what is ailing higher education in Florida. Some day, lawmakers will have to face up to it.
