Friday News Roundup: Week of September 17-21

Clare McCann
This post originally appeared on Ed Money Watch.

Kansas Board of Regents recommends $47.1 million budget increase for higher education

Term-limited Montana Governor Brian Schweitzer says successors should use some surplus to freeze tuition

Mississippi lawmakers question school funding formula

Iowa Regents to seek $40 million financial aid program

Kansas Board of Regents recommends $47.1 million budget increase for higher education
The Kansas Board of Regents voted this week to propose a 6.2 percent spending increase for higher education, although Kansas Governor Sam Brownback had requested that state agencies submit fiscal year 2014 budget proposals that cut spending by 10 percent from 2013 levels. The $47.1 million increase in spending for institutions of higher education would include a 1 percent increase for state employees’ pay, even though the governor’s office explicitly warned against including any salary changes. It would also add about $12 million for inflation and $8 million for technical education. A 10 percent budget cut would force tuition hikes, the Regents said. Previously, the Regents trimmed colleges’ budget requests from $185 million to the $47 million included in the request. More here…

Term-limited Montana Governor Brian Schweitzer says successors should use some surplus to freeze tuition
Montana Governor Brian Schweitzer (D) said this week that, once his second term as governor expires at the end of this year, the state should use a portion of its $450 million surplus to freeze tuition at state colleges and universities. Tuition for the current academic year is about 5 percent higher than it was for last year. Schweitzer plans to include the tuition freeze in his budget proposal, which will be issued this November, though the decision will reside with the new state legislature to be elected that month. Both candidates running to replace Governor Schweitzer said they supported a tuition freeze, but the Republican candidate, Rick Hill, said that he would pay for it through “priority budgeting,” saving money other places in the higher education budget. According to the governor, institutions of higher education have agreed to freeze tuition if the state increases higher education funding by $34 million in fiscal year 2014. More here…

Mississippi lawmakers question school funding formula
According to Mississippi’s interim state Superintendent of Education Lynn House’s testimony this week, the state’s K-12 funding formula will require an additional $300 million over 2013 levels in fiscal year 2014 to be fully funded. The formula fell short of the full funding mark by about $260 million in the current 2013 fiscal year. In total, the Mississippi Department of Education requested about $2.4 billion, mostly for schools; the Department is required by law to request the full funding amount. However, some on the Legislative Budget Committee are suggesting the formula needs revising, given that it receives less than the full amount every year during the budget process. Despite appropriating $500,000 in 2013 to hire consultants to study the formula, legislators only spoke to Department of Education staff and have not hired any consultants. They have not yet reached any agreement on revisions to the formula. More here…

Iowa Regents to seek $40 million financial aid program
The Iowa Board of Regents this week requested that legislators design a $40 million program to provide financial aid to low-income students. The new program would replace a 15 percent tuition set-aside at the state’s three public universities that currently finances financial aid for low-income students. The Regents also stated that they would lower tuition rates after the new program kicks off in the 2013-14 academic year by the amount that the state provides to that program. The proposed changes came after public outrage that middle-class students were subsidizing low-income students. The Regents will vote on the plan at their meeting next month, but agreed this week to submit the $39.5 million budget request to Governor Terry Branstad and the state legislature for the fiscal year 2014 budget. They also voted to request another $40 million funding increase for maintenance of operations, an amount that would allow them to freeze tuition rates for the 2013-14 academic year. More here…