University Credit Hours, Funds Capped!
By Ryan Gabrielson Tribune 8-12-06

Students who take classes for years at Arizona's public universities without earning a degree will soon be spending more than time. They'll be spending thousands of dollars more in tuition. The state Legislature passed a law in 2005 that automatically cuts the universities' funding for each student collecting more than 145 credit hours without graduating.

This school year, the universities will lose $1.9 million - with Arizona State University losing more than a million dollars of that. That cost, or at least a share of it, is expected to be passed on to the students. Members of the Arizona Board of Regents on Friday said they backed measures to move students toward a degree more efficiently.

However, they questioned whether cutting higher education funding was the lawmakers' underlying intention. "There's a lot of money on the table here," said Regent Jack Jewett. "This looks like a solution chasing a problem." Tuition pays only a fraction of the cost required to educate students.

A majority of the expense is covered by state taxpayers and donations to the universities. The Joint Legislative Budget Committee, which advises lawmakers on financial matters, determined the state provides $5,368 a year for each student fully enrolled in one of the three universities.

That amount is to be deducted for each student above the limit, which was phased in over three years. Last year, the cap was 155 credits, this year it is 150 and next year will be 145. "That student gets no more state funding," said Michael Hunter, the regents' lobbyist. "They're cut off." Tuition for undergraduate students at ASU this school year is $4,444. The affected students, now estimated to number 127 at ASU and about 183 statewide, will have to pay a surcharge. The regents, who oversee Arizona's university system, have not decided how much that charge will be.

It is unclear exactly how many of those students remain enrolled, said Robert Bulla, the regents' president. The state Auditor General is expected to study the issue next year. The regents argued that further study is required to make sure that students legitimately pursuing degrees are not violating the cap. When the law was passed, it was estimated to affect about 1,500 students and cost the universities $8 million a year in state funding.

During this year's session, legislators softened the law to exclude many of those students from the cap. Among the exemptions are students with two majors, those pursuing teacher certification and all credit hours transferred from an out-of-state or private university.

ASU President Michael Crow said more than half of the university's students over the cap are studying engineering, math or science, which require a greater number of credit hours to graduate.

The 145 credit ceiling could prove too low for engineering students who need 130 credits for a diploma when minoring in an unrelated subject, like Japanese, Hunter said. "Those degrees are so different from each other, you can easily imagine somebody getting close to that threshold," he said.

Despite concern over the lost funding, most regents encouraged the universities to determine why some students are staying in college too long. Few of the 183 students violating the cap are believed to be enrolled simply to be in college - jokingly labeled "professional students" and "deadbeats" by the regents. "We think there's one left out there on a skateboard," Crow quipped. "He's been there since '63."