by Caleb Fort
Daily Lobo
The New Mexico Senate passed a bill Friday that would make students on the Lottery Scholarship exempt from tuition raises.
Sen. Stuart Ingle, the author of the bill and a Republican from Portales, said he wants schools to think carefully about raising tuition.
"If you look at what's happened over the past 10 years, tuition keeps going up," he said. "Our lottery funds can only support so much. I'm trying to get some stability in the money for our kids."
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The bill is set to go through the House education, finance and judicial committees.
Universities often take the scholarship for granted, he said.
"It's awfully easy if you have 5,000 students at a school on the Lottery Scholarship to think of tuition increases as a good way to get funding," he said.
In 2005, about 7,000 students at UNM had the scholarship.
The bill would keep students' tuition the same as when they qualified for the scholarship for as long as they had it, regardless of tuition increases at the
University.
The scholarship lasts four years.
Regents Jamie Koch, Mel Eaves and Raymond Sanchez had not heard of the bill.
ASUNM Sen. Ilene Strain, who receives the scholarship, said the bill is a good way to save the state's money.
"I think it's a good idea, because it will save money for future students to able to have the Lottery Scholarship," she said. "Regardless of whether tuition's going up or not, the students will have their school paid for, but this will make other students be able to get it."
Strain said she is in favor of the bill, as long as it doesn't hurt UNM.
"I know we're not exactly the richest university," she said. "I want students to be able to get the scholarship in the future, but it won't do much good if UNM is too poor to be good."
The bill would not prevent tuition increases for students who are not on the scholarship.
"Maybe it will discourage universities from raising tuition at all, because students not on the scholarship would be unhappy about it," Ingle said. "They might have to bite the bullet and keep tuition down for everyone."
Strain said it does not bother her that the University could raise tuition for some students.
"It's not necessarily fair," she said. "But since so many people at UNM are from New Mexico, they're able to take advantage of the scholarship. I don't think
it's a problem."
Although some tuition increases are inevitable, universities need to think carefully about using them, Ingle said.
"All of our costs go up, and something obviously needs to be done to compensate for that," he said. "But we need to try to stop thinking that everything's just going to be automatically paid for."
