From the Department of Better Late Than Never...

MPR (01/08/09)

"We know the stress that tuition puts on students and we're doing everything we can to cushion that increase," Pfutzenreuter [University of Minnesota Chief Financial Officer] said. "We're going to continue that effort as we move into the next round of budget reductions."

Regular readers of the Periodic Table will recall the public interchange between Mr. Pfutzenreuter and Represenative Tom Rukavina that is memorialized on the Periodic Table at left:

"They're going to lose a lot of friends at the Capitol if they jack up that tuition," he [Tom Rukavina] said. "They're pricing themselves out of work if they keep going up 7.5 percent."

Despite Rukavina's intent to keep tuition low, Pfutzenreuter stands by the fact that the Legislature can't decide how the University spends its money.

And in response to Pfutzenreuter:

"Tell him to sue me," Rukavina said. "It's in the bill, tell him to sue me."

And from the minutes of a faculty committee meeting in September of 2007, before the budget had even been proposed, it is clear that Mr Pfutzenreuter and the Regents had already decided to ask for 7.5%:

Minutes
Senate Committee on Finance and Planning
Tuesday, September 18, 2007

"Will the Regents support a 7.5% tuition increase, Professor Martin asked? They have been told it is part of the budget plans, Mr. Pfutzenreuter said. Professor Chapman suggested that 7.5% will be seen as quite high. Mr. Pfutzenreuter agreed but pointed out that for Minnesota residents the legislature provided funding to buy down the increase by 2%, so it will only be 5.5% (for students from households with an income of up to $150,000). Professor Chapman said he was sorry to see such an increase in an election year; Mr. Pfutzenreuter said the other choices are increased state funding or less new investment."

As Orwell put it:

"He who controls the present, controls the past. He who controls the past, controls the future."

Re-writing history is a common tactic of OurAdministrators, as I have pointed out in the past, e.g. from an earlier rant:

Which goes to show that if you wait long enough as a U of M administrator, people will eventually forget your past sins and you can feel free to re-write history. (I was a very strong supporter of the new Science Classrom Building. There is no conflict between teaching and research. I am for stature rather than ratings. I strongly support General College. I strongly support a higher minority enrollment. General College must go. I am against re-engineering. I am for Kotter's Eight-Stage Process of Creating Change. This is a land grant institution.)

And so it goes.

Bonzo