This week, The University of Texas’ Board of Regents voted unanimously to direct $160 million of its endowments into their financial aid program after the Texas Legislature shirked their responsibility to control UT’s rising tuition.
This is a massive increase in available funds for UT’s financial aid program, as it previously only had a budget of $3 million.
Unfortunately, only a small amount of UT students will benefit from this massive increase in available financial aid.
The new plan will provide free tuition for around 8,600 students—less than 25 percent of the student body—who qualify for in-state tuition and whose family income is $65,000 per year or less. The 5,700 in-state students whose family income is between $65,000 and $125,000 will receive some assistance, while any student whose family makes more than that amount and/or is an out-of-state student—around 65 percent of the student population—will not benefit from this new plan.
On top of that, since the only requirements to reap the benefits of this new plan are income and residency, any illegal alien that currently qualifies for in-state tuition and whose family makes under $65,000 now qualifies for free tuition at the expense of middle-class citizens and lawful immigrants.
This move comes after the Texas Legislature shirked its responsibility to rein in runaway tuition increases at its flagship public university and failed to pass State Rep. Kyle Biedermann‘s (R–Fredericksburg) bill to end in-state tuition for illegal aliens.
State Rep. Briscoe Cain (R–Baytown) has denounced the plan as “bad policy,” while the UT chapter of Young Conservatives of Texas pointed out that tuition can be made cheaper for all Texans by ending the in-state tuition for illegal aliens program that will cost taxpayers a total of $100 million by 2020.
Bad policy. The cost of tuition should not be linked to the amount of resources a student’s family has. What about the student whose family started treating them like adults at age 18 and want them to fend for themselves? #txlege https://t.co/CHWNz2vSJw
— ???????????????????????????? ???????????????? (@BriscoeCain) July 10, 2019
#ThrowbackThursday to when we had a solution to make college cheaper for ALL Texans ???? https://t.co/XmPxkUAFmk pic.twitter.com/Gtfx4G02Io
— Young Conservatives of Texas at UT Austin (@TexasYCT) July 11, 2019
Instead of helping to lower costs for all students, UT is only doing so for a select few.
The new policy will take effect in 2020.
