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Bill Powers, President of University of Texas firmly believe that the state administration can do a world of good by offering funding at a more regular basis for the purpose of higher education. The constant rise in tuition fees has been a major concern for the students and has often squeezed them.

Powers included Rick Perry’s proposal in his annual university speech that says all the freshmen should get the permission to lock tuition fee amount for a period of four years. About 50,000 campus students attended this speech. 

Powers agreed that Perry’s idea that urges students to get a graduation degree in a period of four years is certainly a very heartening move. However, he did not endorse the proposal right away as it does not include and specifications as such yet. Powers added that Texas should certainly help students and their families to cope up with higher education cost by ensuring that every student graduates in four years.

He also claimed that Perry’s idea could turn out to be a great boon as it would also encourage students to achieve the graduation degree in four years. Powers also believes that the state lawmakers should keep a fixed budget for higher education. The year 2011 saw a drastic reduction in the budget. University of Texas witnessed a reduction of nearly $92 million the same year.

Higher education includes a lot of planning. Unfortunately, with no predictable funding coming in, the planning does tend to suffer a bit. With the help of predictable revenue, planning would be much better. With better planning in place, more efficiency would invariably come into the picture. On the other hand, Perry has insisted that increase in overall budget would not be possible as of now and hence has urged agencies to initiate cost cutting process.

A student, who graduates in four years, would invariably be able to save money. University of Texas has been able to produce 52% graduates every four years. According to Powers, this figure should go upto 70% by the end of 2017. Graduating on time is the only way to cut down the costs for families and students, Powers said.

Perry, on the other hand, stated that universities should function in more efficient manner. However, many education administrators do not agree with Perry as they feel that in an effort to increase efficiency, there could be a drastic reduction in overall quality. Recent years have seen a steep rise in tuition fees for students at Texas University. According to a recent study, a student from this university is paying 55% more as fees that what one did about a decade ago.

Till the year 2003, the state lawmakers had a limit for tuition fees. Hence, college was a lot more affordable. Unfortunately, post 2003 the state started facing significant budget constraints and hence lawmakers were not able to offer same kind of funding as they once did. Finally, the state has no option but to allow the universities to go ahead and decide the fee amount themselves.