PHOENIX – A bid by the Arizona Board of Regents for another $732 million to finance state universities is rekindling a decades-old fight about the financial responsibility of state taxpayers versus how much of the cost should be borne by students.
In its new request, the board says the money is necessary to maintain programs in the face of prior funding cuts, and they want all of it to come from taxpayers versus students. That is a 75% increase from current state funding.
The chairman of the Senate Appropriations Committee said that’s not going to happen. Sen. John Kavanagh said the estimates of tax collections for the coming fiscal year suggests that no one -including the universities – are going to be able to get additional funding.
But regardless of the state’s overall financial situation, the Fountain Hills Republican who has been in the Legislature since 2007, said he thinks the university system is getting what it needs from state taxpayers. And he said that for a large share of Arizonans, higher education remains affordable and free for many.