What We Think: Stop Cuts to University Funding, Freeze Tuition

After relentlessly raising tuition by double digits for the past four or five years, Florida’s public universities have offered state lawmakers and Gov. Rick Scott a deal. The universities will hold the line on tuition next year in return for another $118 million in state funding. It’s too good a deal to pass up. As universities were hiking tuition, lawmakers were slashing their state funding almost 40 percent. Dollars doled out by the Legislature used to finance three-quarters of a student’s university education in Florida. Now they cover less than half the tab at most schools.