State Senators Want College Students to Bear Unfair Tax Burden

Senate Bill 2236, co-sponsored by Senators Lee Constantine (R – Dist. 22, Orange & Seminole Counties) and Walter “Skip” Campbell (D – Dist. 32, Broward County.), imposes stiff penalties on Floridians in the state university and community college systems for earning more than 115% of the credits required for a degree. Under this proposal, students exceeding this 115% limit will be required to pay out-of-state tuition rates!

(By the way, that's the same Republican Senator Lee Constantine who sponsored legislation in 1998 to toughen drunk driving laws and then was arrested in May of 2004, earning his second DUI conviction.)

According to the Florida State University catalog for the 2004-05 academic year, the in-state tuition rate is $90.42 per credit hour. The out-of-state rate is $458.02 per credit hour. The cost of a typical 3-credit hour course at FSU will skyrocket from $271.26 to $1374.06! That's an increase of over 400%!!!

This bill may actually do more to prevent people from getting degrees than anything else. There will be students who will be forced to drop out the day it becomes law.

This bill is nothing less than a huge, regressive tax on college students. Students whose parents have an income well into the six-figure range will be able to absorb this tax much more easily than a student whose parents earn $40,000 per year or a returning older student who is struggling to make ends meet and just wants to improve his or her lot in life. Once again, the bulk of the tax burden falls on low- and middle-income Floridians. Shame on these Senators for trying to balance the budget on the backs of college students!

They seem to want us to think they're targeting undisciplined, drifting slackers while ignoring the fact that there are students who want to earn a double-major (perhaps with a minor), or they want to go back and get a second degree, or maybe they are lifetime learners and then, yes, there are people who get to college and end up changing majors, but that’s a normal part of the college experience. Young adults in their late teens and early twenties should not be punished because they discover that they aren’t cut out for math and want to study political science instead.

This bill actually says, “It is the intent of the Legislature to discourage undergraduate students in postsecondary education from exceeding the number of credit hours required to complete the students' respective degree programs.”

Why on earth would we want to discourage people who want to improve themselves and learn all they can? Why would Florida not want to cultivate the best and the brightest right here in our own state? Higher education helps develop qualified workers. Education helps people, it helps business, it helps Florida and it helps America.

S 2236 imposes a steep and unfair tax on higher learning. It’s anti-education and anti-growth.

I want to encourage everyone to mobilize your friends, especially college students and their parents, in opposition to this bill. Write/call/e-mail to your state legislators; write to the sponsors of the bill, Senator Constantine and Senator Campbell; write to university and community college presidents; write letters to the editor of newspapers around the state; write articles for your school newspapers; start petitions; post flyers, etc. Do whatever it takes! Make your fellow students aware that they stand to get screwed by this proposal.

This legislation may directly affect YOU and it will probably somebody you know.