In-state tuition bill lives
Dang but there's a lot going on down on Jones Street these days. So I missed the committee hearing that lead to the demise the in-state tuition bill. (More after the jump.)
Update: Well, the bill's fortunes changed between the time I wrote this post and right now.
At first, the bill would have included full-ride academic scholarships as well as ones for athletes. Once the academic measure was taken out, the bill was on its way.
It passed House Appropriations on a 61-14 vote.
"The taxpayer subsidies to the boosters clubs caused a lot of outrage," said Rep. Pricey Harrison, a Greensboro Democrat.
The bill now goes to the House floor, where given the Apropos vote it is likely to pass. Its future in the Senate is murky.
The rest of the original post is after the jump, but a bit dated now. You can find links to background by clicking here.
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For those who don't remember, a couple budgets ago, a break for booster clubs got written into the law. It said that if a club was giving someone a full ride scholarship, they'd only have to pay the in-state tuition rate, which is much, much lower than the tuition for an out-of-state student.
Rep. Pricey Harrison, a Greensboro Democrat, and Republican Rep. George Cleveland filed a bill to repeal that measure, saying it was elitist and bad public policy. Click here for background.
Well, that effort apparently met its demise in committee this week. From the partisan but entertaining Chris Fitzsimon:
Just before Mary English and Jesse Riddick described their maiming at the hands of the state, Rep. George Cleveland presented his plan to repeal a provision snuck into the budget a few years ago that gives in-state tuition to out of state athletes and academic scholarship recipients at UNC campuses.Cleveland told lawmakers that the majority of the students who get the in-state tuition are athletes, which provides a huge windfall for the athletic booster clubs at UNC-Chapel Hill and N.C. State. Then one lawmaker after another spoke against Cleveland’s idea, which was co-sponsored by Rep. Pricey Harrison.
The objections were remarkably similar and sounded like talking points provided by the Citizens for Higher Education, a political action committee run by wealthy supporters of UNC that donated roughly half a million dollars to legislative campaigns in the last election cycle.
Virtually every opponent of Cleveland’s bill said that most of the money went for academic scholarships, ignoring a staff memo handed out to every committee member that showed 70 percent of the students affected were out of state athletes, not scholars.
No one mentioned that UNC President Erskine Bowles says he opposes the in-state tuition provision and that includes the lobbyists who work for Bowles, who sat quietly in the back of the room. The Citizens for Higher Education lobbyists were working the committee and apparently working it well. Half a million dollars in campaign contributions makes that kind of job a little easier.
Cleveland finally withdrew his bill sensing that it was destined for defeat and the $16 million giveaway to the folks in the padded seats at basketball games was safe.
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