Lawmaker: Where was NSU, others’ support on first higher ed legislation?

Dear Editor,

I would like to comment on Eric Besson’s article, “NSU alumni to Jindal: Help us help ourselves.”

The article stated, “One idea, backed by Nicholls State University President Stephen Hulbert and the Nicholls State Alumni Federation, is to remove the tuition cap … whether they sign up for 12 hours or 21 hours.”

As a legislator, I also, am in favor of that idea. In fact, I had actually filed a piece of legislation last session to remove the cap so that if one registered for 15 hours, he or she would have to pay tuition for those 15 hours. What was disappointing to me as the local representative representing the university is that I got NO support from anyone at Nicholls, the alumni nor from any other higher ed institution.

The administration was aware of the bill and I never received one call supporting this idea, which, if passed last session, would have reaped about $3 million for Nicholls this school year.

At the time, during last session, the focus from higher education folks was the La. Grad Act, which would give the university authority to raise tuition 10 percent starting with the 2012-13 school year.

The Grad Act also called for performance standards to kick in before they could actually begin raising the tuition.

I had a very hard time supporting the Grad Act until I could find no reason to vote against it other than I didn’t want to have to make students pay more. I could find no one in the community who was against the Grad Act; students were saying they were in favor of it if it would save their school; the business community was solidly behind it (LABI) and all of the interest groups like CABL and PAR were in favor of the bill.

Finally, being convinced that it was a good trade off; performance standards would kick in first, and then each university could raise the tuition with approval from its board and that our state’s tuition has always been much lower than comparable schools in other states, I decided to commit to the bill and I believe I actually called Dr. Hulbert to tell him that I would support it.

The bill passes then goes to the Senate and they decide to allow the universities to raise tuition as soon as possible (2010) and then performance standards would be looked at later.

The Grad Act came back to the House and I really felt double-crossed; but after giving my commitment, I stayed with it.

Still, no one bothered to show any support for my bill to actually remove the cap on charging for 12 hours. Fast-forward to this bill and now the push is to remove the cap. I have re-filed the legislation that would allow the universities to charge a student for the actual amount of hours he or she registers for, whether it be 12 or 21 hours. Let’s hope that I can get some support for this bill this coming session.

Jerome “Dee” Richard,

State Representative, District 55