But a bill to offer Vermonters free tuition at public colleges, a nonstarter in previous years, is suddenly getting traction – and some think the tide could be turning. They point to “free college” programs popping up in other states and the platforms of presidential candidates, new revenues coming into state coffers, and a Republican governor sympathetic to higher education funding needs.
“I feel like we’re about to turn a corner, to be perfectly honest. And I think we’re about to start making the investment we need to make,” said Sen. Anthony Pollina, P/D-Washington.
Pollina has reintroduced legislation, S.38, to cover four years of tuition at the Vermont State Colleges for in-state students. But while Senate Education committee chair Phil Baruth, D/P-Chittenden, is blunt that S.38 won’t go anywhere in its current form, he thinks a scaled-down version just might.
As it stands, Pollina’s bill would take $30 million from the education fund to create a “last-dollar” scholarship program, bridging the gap between the cost of tuition and whatever federal, state, or institutional aid a student receives. It wouldn’t cover room and board or other fees. Baruth told committee members Thursday that leadership felt a downsized version of the legislation, with a substantially lower cost, was well worth exploring.
“My suggestion is that we work on the program itself, with an idea toward keeping the price tag at a manageable level, let’s say between $7 and $10 million a year, and figure out what’s equitable and productive within that,” Baruth said.
Lawmakers only engaged in preliminary discussions Thursday, but they considered cutting the number of years the program would cover to one or two instead of four, or perhaps making the benefit only available to low-income students.
The committee will need to do more than whittle the down the price of such a program to move the bill forward. Using the legislation’s current proposed funding source – the education fund – is guaranteed to raise stringent objections from several top lawmakers and public preK-12 officials.
A parallel debate is happening at the other end of the education spectrum, in early education, where Gov. Phil Scott has proposed using new internet sales taxes to fund additional child care subsidies. The proposal has the support of early education advocates, but it has raised alarm bells with public school officials, who argue all sales tax revenues have been promised to the education fund.
Baruth acknowledged the question of how to fund the scholarship would be thorny, and told his colleagues to focus first on program design. But he did suggest one idea – sending half of all revenues from a taxed and regulated marijuana retail market to higher education.
He even has a slogan at the ready: “Tax, regulate, educate.”
“I don’t know how far we’re going to get in one year. But I think incremental steps moving forward in that direction are very encouraging,” he said.
But Spaulding also cautioned lawmakers not to let more ambitious proposals distract them from the colleges’ “immediate needs.”
The VSCS has asked lawmakers to increase state appropriations to the system by $25 million over a five-year period, which would mean a $5 million bump next year. The VSCS says that would bring Vermont in line with what other New England states spend on their public colleges.
In his budget for next year, Scott has proposed a $3 million increase in the system’s base appropriation. College officials still plan to lobby for more, but have said Scott’s proposal would be enough to roll back a planned 3 percent tuition increase.
