Last Thursday, the Arizona Board of Regents approved $9,716 for undergraduate resident tuition and mandatory fees for incoming freshmen and students not on a tuition commitment.
To put things into perspective, that is a 20 percent increase from last year and 96 percent hike since I was a freshman in 2007.
ABOR justified forcing the burden of funding the universities onto students and their already struggling families by reassigning the blame to the Arizona legislature — a governing body whose current leadership proposes outlandish cuts to vital government services while pandering to outside business interests.
On Apr. 7, Gov. Jan Brewer signed the budget negotiated by herself and Republicans in the Legislature. The budget included more than $1 billion worth of cuts, tax breaks for corporations, and no new sources of revenue.
More responsibility for funding Department of Motor Vehicle (DMVs) throughout the state is being pushed onto local governments.
Additionally, less than half of the cuts — $500 million — came from the Arizona Health Care Cost Containment System, including reducing those eligible for the state’s Medicaid program. This provision is likely to face lawsuits, an added expense for the defense litigation the state will have to fund.
Public K-12 education saw a cut of $150 million and community colleges lost $70 million, and $198 million for state universities, according to Mary Jo Pitzl of The Arizona Republic.
Brewer expressed in the article that no body is content by cuts to public education, yet she conveniently ignores that the budget is barely about happiness.
The budget is a question of whom the Arizona legislature beckons and whom it simply does not, a question that can be answered by merely looking at the facts.
In addition to the cuts from the general welfare, the governor opportunely collected no new revenue and implemented tax breaks for businesses and corporations.
Corporate tax rates will decrease from about 7 percent to 5 percent between 2014 and 2018, according to Mary Jo Pitzl and Ginger Rough of The Arizona Republic.
In the article, the director of the Governor’s Office of Strategic Planning and Budgeting John Arnold, along with Republican legislators, said that decreasing tax rates will lead to higher revenue.
This is because businesses will be attracted by the little responsibility they will have for contributing to the well-being of the local communities and thus, will want to invest and benefit from the Legislature’s austerity measures.
Brewer and the Legislature bending over backward for private interests are exemplary of lazy policy-making.
Arizona’s budget will have the lowest tax rate on income and corporations in the country, coupled with the second-to-last in spending per-student and the second-highest poverty rate, according to the East Valley Tribune.
This bailout on the back of our future does not line up with the future of Arizona I want.
Reach Athena at asalman3@asu.edu
