Democrat John Hickenlooper plans to create a large new scholarship fund to keep Colorado colleges affordable, and he will be asking gas and oil companies to help. His plan would include asking gas and oil companies for an increase in the severance tax, he said Monday.
Colorado colleges are facing a financial crisis and are planning for hefty tuition increases to make up for a cut in state support.
"Increasing dramatically the amount of scholarship money in our higher ed system allows us to raise tuition rates without affecting middle-class kids or kids from lower-income families," Hickenlooper said.
Hickenlooper has promised to make college education a priority, but he has offered few details about how he would keep colleges in business without making them too expensive.
His main opponents are Tom Tancredo of the American Constitution Party and Republican Dan Maes. Tancredo has said colleges should consolidate programs to stop duplicating their efforts.
"We want to try to get private businesses to support the notion that higher education is sufficiently important that they need to support it. “
He will look for help from various industries, among them the gas and oil business.
"Our hope is that at some point, they would voluntarily increase their severance," Hickenlooper said. – More -
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