The fixed-tuition bill

This is some legislation I wrote and successfully pushed in 2004. It became law, although I don't know if it was ever implemented as I left CSA shortly after this article appeared.

Fixed-tuition bill offers students same rate for all college years
Chris Kampfe and Kyle Endres
The CSU Collegian
Issue date: 5/4/04

Four-year college students could pay an unchanging tuition amount every year under a bill passed by the state legislature on Monday.

House Bill 1207, barring Gov. Bill Owens' veto, will allow students to sign a contract upon admission to state higher-education institutions that would grant them a fixed-tuition rate if they promise to graduate in a certain amount of time.

"It's to try to even out price increases and tuition increases so a family can plan their budget and say we know that for the next four years, 'We've got to come up with this amount of money,'" said Rick O'Donnell, executive director of the Colorado Commission on Higher Education.

The fixed rate would be strictly optional for students.

"In my own opinion, in the way I've seen the bill most recently, though it hasn't passed yet, it makes it optional to offer these fixed-tuition contracts to students, and it makes it optional for students to participate," said Gerard Bomotti, vice president for Administrative Services.

The bill was proposed by Rep. Nancy Spence, R-Centennial, and co-drafted with Ryan McMaken, executive director of the Colorado Student Association.

McMaken said he believes state universities support the idea.

"It isn't a mandate," McMaken said. "It's something they wanted to do in the past."

Bomotti is wary of implementing such contracts in unpredictable economic times.

"An institution can best offer a fixed-tuition program over a four-year period if the environment is more stable," Bomotti said. "Now, the financial environment in Colorado is not stable."

The bill's implementation is contingent on the passage of the College Opportunity Fund, which is also awaiting Owens' approval. This bill would grant stipends, or vouchers, to in-state students for use at state universities, rather than universities receiving funding directly from the state.

Some stipend supporters say the College Opportunity Fund provides the opportunity for universities to attain enterprise status, which would give them more financial flexibility.

Owens will approve the bill this month, O'Donnell said.

He said the fixed-tuition rate would offer students and families more choices in paying for college.

"Not every student or family's going to want it, but it was an option that the institutions saw they could offer that some students would maybe find (is) an easier way to be able manage the cost of college," he said.

But Sen. Peggy Reeves, D-Larimer County, agrees with Bomotti that the fixed-tuition contract bill's timing is questionable.

"I think that we're in a great state of flux within higher education right now," she said. "I think we need to implement the college-opportunity vouchers and understand how that mechanism works and how that shakedown works before we implement this proposal."

Student Debt

Here's a partial clipping on student debt. The issue of credit-card debt was big at the time. I also chaired a panel on the topic at the annual conference of the Colorado Student Loan Program (now College Invest).

CONSOLIDATE STUDENT DEBT, EXPERTS SAY LOW INTEREST RATES CAN ADD UP TO BIG SAVINGS

Rocky Mountain News
July 8, 2002
Julie Poppen News Staff Writer

...Record low interest rates have Colorado college graduates who are knee-deep in debt angling to consolidate their loans.

There's never been a better time to do it, financial aid officials say. The historic low interest rates on Federal Stafford loans of 3.46 percent for a student in school and 4.06 percent for many graduates kicked in a week ago.

"A lot of students are fairly careless about how they calculate what they're going to be paying back in the future," said Ryan McMaken, president of the Colorado Student Association...

USA Today on voucher plan

USAToday
Posted 5/10/2004 9:20 PM Updated 5/11/2004 1:31 PM

Colorado to create college voucher plan
DENVER (AP) — Gov. Bill Owens signed Colorado's first-in-the-nation college voucher plan into law Monday, calling it a landmark step that will empower thousands of students.

Owens said the vouchers send a message to high schoolers that college is not out of reach and that state money — up to $2,400 per voucher — is available to help.

"Quality education isn't about institutions, it's about the future of our students," he said. "It's a new day for higher-education funding in America, and I'm proud to say that it's dawning in Colorado."

Stipends will be available to all Colorado undergraduate students who qualify for in-state tuition.

Every year, the Legislature would set the value of the stipend based on the state budget. For next fall, the amount is set at $2,400 for students attending a public institution in Colorado, and $1,200 for low-income students attending three private institutions: Regis University, which is a Catholic institution, the University of Denver and Colorado College.

The National Conference of State Legislatures says no other state has attempted a voucher program on such a scale.

But students might not get the full $2,400 this year because of budget problems, state lawmakers have said. They said the amount will have to be cut to $1,600 unless voters ease fiscal restraints embedded in the state constitution or agree to use millions of dollars Colorado gets from the national settlement with the tobacco industry.

Opponents of the voucher program complained that giving state funds to private colleges would draw money away from state institutions and could be challenged in court. Owens and others, however, say vouchers would encourage more students to go to college.

Ryan McMaken, director of the Colorado Student Association, which represents about 60,000 college students, said the plan does not put more money into higher education. But he said it could make it harder to cut funding.

This article also appeared on CNN.com:

Nation's first college voucher program OK'd

Monday, May 10, 2004 Posted: 2:28 PM EDT (1828 GMT)

DENVER, Colorado (AP) -- Gov. Bill Owens signed Colorado's first-in-the-nation college voucher plan into law Monday, calling it a landmark step that will empower thousands of students...

A recent meat-and-potatoes placement

Tuesday, October 28, 2008
Apartment vacancies hit 6.5 percent
Denver Business Journal

Apartment vacancies in metro Denver increased in the third quarter because of the soft national economy, but remained relatively low by recent standards, according to a report issued Tuesday by the Division of Housing...

“The rental market is being affected by the financial markets,” said Ryan McMaken, community relations director for the Division of Housing.

9News piece on foreclosures

It is apparently unspeakably difficult to produce a screenshot of video of myself in which I look decent. However, this was a pretty good story.

While I prefer to put the division director in front of the camera, sometimes I have to be the spokesman:



A partial transcript:

"From 2006 to 2007 we had this huge jump, 40 percent. The number jumped from about 28,000 filings in 2006 to 39,000 filings in '07. I'm estimating we'll probably see about 45,000 to 50,000 filings in 2008," said Ryan McMaken with the Division of Housing.

McMaken says a recent report from the Pew Charitable Trust that forecasted one out every 25 homeowners in Colorado would likely go into default in the next two years wasn't necessarily offering any new information. McMaken pointed out that such a statistic doesn't necessarily indicate that there will be a correlating increase in foreclosure.

"One in 25 does seem very high, but you want to keep in mind that this is only dealing with defaults, so we're talking about those homeowners that have become 90 days overdue in their payments. It doesn't necessarily mean that default will end up in foreclosure," said McMaken.

Many have been wondering if the crisis on Wall Street has "bottomed out." The same could be asked of the housing/foreclosure crisis. Much like the nebulous stock market, the answer for the housing sector is fluid.

"That's very difficult to say, certainly for 2008 I don't think it's the case that we've bottomed out," said McMaken.

A Great CNN Money Video on the Hotline

CNN Money came to town to work on a foreclosure story. I was able to have them feature both our Division Director and one of our board members in the story. They ended up producing this great video.

New Foreclosure Hotline YouTube Channel

I put together a YouTube channel for all the video content we've produced around the Foreclosure Hotline. Recently, Fireside Production made a great mini-documentary about the Hotline which I've featured on the channel.