RightOnline and Americans for Prosperity – Texas hosted a call to address the most talked about issue in higher education, sky rocketing cost. Will Lutz, with the Lone Star Report, was the expert guest and he had some great ideas to address our current problems with our university system. In order to fix the problem we must first understand that the relationship between the Texas Legislature and the university system is “interesting” at best. In 2003, when Texas faced a huge budget shortfall the University of Texas and Texas A&M both received budget increases while just about every other government agency saw cuts. So one would assume that Texas universities and the Texas Legislature would have a pretty good working relationship but that only seems to be the case when our universities get what they want.

In a recent speech by the University of Texas President, William Powers Jr., took the opportunity to send a shot across the bow of Gov. Rick Perry and those who seek to reform by saying that “We(the universities) are the agents of change.” In case you don’t remember this was the a tag line that was used by President Obama that helped him win election in 2008. This phrase was very deliberately used to tell the rest of us that we shouldn’t try to mess with their current system because they know what is best. These comments are in response to Gov. Perry’s proposal for universities to work to graduate students for only $10,000, attempts to limit research funding, and asking professors to teach more than 2 classes a semester. I know, really radical stuff…

So how do we demand reform while still allowing the universities the opportunity to take the lead of these reforms? One of Will Lutz answers, and my favorite, was surprisingly simple. Freeze funding for the universities but be willing to fund their reforms. I know nothing is never “that simple” but I believe this is a fairly good idea to help push for reforms without taking away anymore sovereignty of the university.