Face the State

By Andrew Ripemoff

Good morning! C’mon in! I’m glad you came to visit us here at the financial aid office. As a counselor, I’m here to help thousands of college students just like you deal with the hefty price of higher education. So. Other than the fact your baseball hat is on backwards, what seems to be the problem?

You’re worried about not being able to afford college? What makes you think tuition is going to rise? You read about it in the newspaper? Are you sure that’s accurate? Oh. I see. You read about it in the Denver Post.

Like I said, are you sure that’s accurate?

CU-Boulder's Norlin QuadArthur Mouratidis/Flickr

Ha, ha! That’s just a little joke to get us started. If you’ll give me a minute, I’ll just put away my NCAA bracket, and do a little computer research to see if you’re right.

Well I’ll be dog gone, tuition IS rising in Colorado. This Rocky Mountain News Story from October 23, 2007 says that four-year colleges in Colorado had the 2nd highest tuition increase of all 50 states. 2nd Highest. Wow. It also says that the average tuition hike for Colorado colleges and universities was 16% this past fall. That’s interesting, but I’m sure there are good reasons for it. Talented academic scholars like Ward Churchill don’t work for free you know.

OK, OK, sorry. Stop giving me that dirty look. I’ll try take this more seriously. It’s just that I don’t understand what’s going on. I mean, when we passed Ref. C, it was supposed to make college tuition more affordable. You remember Ref C don’t you? You don’t? Oh, that’s right. You weren’t old enough to vote then. Well Ref. C was this huge tax hike that we voted on ourselves. You see, in the past, when our state government collected too much money, they weren’t allowed to spend it. Instead, they’d have to be responsible with our money, and mail us our tax refund checks. This year, we were supposed to get $273 per person. Um...yeah. I guess you’re right. That WOULD buy a lot of beer.

Anyway, like I was saying, Ref. C was on the ballot, with the guarantee that 30% of the billions in new revenue would be directed towards higher education. Bill Ritter, Bernie Buescher, and Andrew Romanoff all told us that if we’d just pass the thing, college tuition would be affordable, and everyone would have free healthcare, and birds would sing pretty songs, and cats and dogs would get along, and....

What’s that? Am I rambling? Sorry. And you say you have to get to class pretty soon? Oh, don’t worry about that. The way tuition is rising, you won’t be able to afford classes.

Ha, ha! Just a little bit of financial aid humor for you. Actually, I’m confident you’ll be OK for next year. I’ll check the news sites again, but I’m sure that after all their promises, democrats won’t dare your raise tuition again.

Oopsie! My bad. According to the Rocky Mountain News, Bernie Buescher’s Joint Budget Committee has just recommended ANOTHER tuition increase of 9 1/2 percent for next fall. Do you know what that means? You’re screwed. But we’re going to Google some old stories and go back in time for a second. Check this out, you’re going to love it:

In an October 6, 2005 Denver Post article, taxpayers were warned that failure to pass Ref. C could result in, (and this is a direct quote): "...possible tuition increases as high as $423 per semester for Colorado residents at the Boulder campus." That sounds really ominous huh?

But now we know this new 9 1/2 percent tuition hike will mean that a student taking 15 hours of, say, engineering classes at CU-Boulder will see a tuition increase of $482.98 per semester. I see you’re eyes are glazing over, so let me diagram this out for you:

Democrat Talking Points:

Before Ref. C:
"You MUST vote for this. If not, tuition will be raised $423 per semester."

After Ref. C passes:
"Thanks for your vote, but we’re going to raise tuition $482 per semester anyway."

Isn’t that funny? You’d pay LESS tuition had Ref. C failed. Don’t you love the irony? Oh, um. Gosh. Sorry. OK, OK. I’m just the messenger. I, I, I can’t breathe. Can you please take your hands off my throat.

Cough! Cough! Thank you.

Like I said, I’m real sorry about these high costs, but maybe college is overrated anyway. Besides, I guess those democrat politicians had a point. How so you ask?

Well they said that passing Ref. C would help education. And they’re right.

All the voters who fell for it just got schooled.