(07-12-2019 02:21 PM)RiceLad15 Wrote:  

(07-12-2019 10:34 AM)tanqtonic Wrote:  

(07-12-2019 10:13 AM)RiceLad15 Wrote:  

(07-11-2019 08:20 PM)Tomball Owl Wrote:  

(07-11-2019 05:46 PM)RiceLad15 Wrote:  It’s certainly not an elegant solution, but if you want to decrease tuition, you need to make up that lack of funding elsewhere. Increasing state funding is the only revenue source that the state can affect directly. You could cut expenses to make up for the decrease in revenue as well, I just don’t know the intricacies of UT’s expenses, so while not elegant, it’s clear and concise.

Still doesn’t cut costs as you originally proposed.

Good luck selling that proposal. I’m sure the Aggies, Cougars, Red Raiders, Horned Frogs, Bears, Owls (except for you), etc., would love to have their taxes increased to subsidize “free”, as characterized by the Comical, tuition for the Longhorns. Maybe we should pay for their tickets at NRG as well?

Huh, TIL that A&M and Tech are private universities that don't receive state funding...

But two things. 1) the original comment thread was about the cost of attendance (tuition), not the amount of money that universities are spending, in general.

2) Capping tuition would inherently affect the total amount of money universities spend. Tuition is the only lever that universities can immediately pull in order to generate revenue and cover increases in costs, right? So if you eliminate that lever, the only way to increase operating costs are to pull in more donations (not guaranteed), pull in more research dollars (not guaranteed), or lobby at the state level (not guaranteed), because you aren't going to dig into the endowment.

I kind of viewed this inelegant proposal as increasing state funding to allow universities to keep their current budgets. Then, if universities can make a compelling case to increase state funding, since their tuition revenue is fixed, they would have to convince the state to open its purse.

At least, that's how I would see capping tuition making school's more affordable for all students across the income spectrum.

Actually AM should be even more pissed: in that case the PUF which is a base source to both (and only) the UT and AM systems is being utilized, plus all the taxpayers 'giving' to the effort via the state tax coffers. On second thought, change that to AM *and* all the other schools in the UT system....

And to the extent that UT Austin receives direct tax funding, a tax increase to increase only their largesse I think would be kind of sick.

I had thought the PUF was on top of state funding for these two universities, and there was a base level of state funding doled out for all public universities in the state. Am I misunderstanding the system?

The PUF is set up to only fund the UT and AM system. The Texas Leg set up another one for UH, Tech, and Texas State systems overall.

I dont think it matters which source is labeled 'base' or 'on top', the list shows the several spigots emptying into the UT Austin operations pool. One of which is Leg revenue based, one of which is PUF based (for the UT system and Austin's share of that). My use of 'base source' perhaps added a superfluous adjective in that phrase, much as your 'on top' and 'base' are also superfluous in that context.