Our beloved state of Colorado has been ranked dead last in a report released by the National Science Foundation.
State funding on a per-student basis at CSU is plummeting faster than any other state during the same time period, with our university president issuing dire warning about the future privatization of higher education in Colorado.
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At the same time, tuition at CSU has increased 54 percent over the last years, and will only continue to increase unless the state is able to provide more funding to higher education in Colorado.
Because of Colorado’s Taxpayer Bill of Rights, however states that the state and local governments cannot raise tax rates without voter approval or even spend revenues collected under budget surpluses without voter approval — and it doesn’t look like Coloradans are going to vote to give us more money anytime soon
Where does that leave us, the students? Holding the check.
Yeah, sure, CSU will try to defray the costs by increasing out of state and international enrollment and entering into contracts with private companies until every inch of campus is covered with corporate symbols — but it won’t be enough to keep your tuition from skyrocketing.
The only way out of this is to raise taxes, and raise revenues for higher education. The only way to do that is via a vote by the people.
Colorado is consistently ranked the third smartest state in the United States, with a much larger amount of the adult population of Colorado with a post-secondary education than the majority of states in the country.
But the way our higher education funding is headed without a tax increase voted on by the people, we won’t be in third place for long.
