The target of a new House bill sponsored by Rep. Jason Holsman, D-District 45, is a “tuition lock” that will guarantee incoming freshmen pay the same tuition rate throughout their college careers.

HB 1925 aims to aid future students and their families by giving them an unchanging, up-front price for which they can plan accordingly. The tuition cap will apply to in-state students who remain enrolled in at least 12 credit hours per semester at a state university for up to five years. The bill excludes summer session classes and also excludes out-of-state students.

Now, it would be absolutely wonderful if we students could all be guaranteed one price to pay for our education and know that price from the very first day. No student should ever have to put a halt to education because the cost suddenly increases to an unexpected level. Financial planning is always helpful.

On a surface level, every student should support such a bill. However, further examination raises troubling concerns and reveals crippling flaws.

Foremost is the fact that students will have to contend with the idea of the next class paying for whatever increases in cost the school might incur. Sure, your tuition might be set at a level you’re happy with, but your younger peers may have a tuition set so high they decide not to attend college. These tuitions could be drastically high, as they were in Illinois, which also has a tuition cap. Incoming students and out-of-state students would then have to pay the costs.
Proponents argue that the Missouri law forbidding state schools to raise tuition above the rate of inflation, and Gov. Jay Nixon’s policy of cutting funding for universities that do, will ensure there won’t be a $10,000 jump in tuition from year to year because inflation is relatively low. But given the potential losses in funding from losing three classes’ worth of increased tuition payments, it’s likely that cost will be higher than the rate of inflation. What then? Will MU receive a cut in funding? Will the law be changed? HB 1925 is fundamentally irreconcilable with the present law.

Then again, state universities could take a different approach to offsetting funding losses, one that would require all students to pay the cost. In this approach, tuition won’t change but student fees will. It’s happened before for fees from various Missouri schools, with increases ranging from 6.5 percent to 48.7 percent.

This legislation is meant to make higher education more affordable, but in reality it will only make it more expensive. We wrote our [opinion](https://www.themaneater.com/stories/2011/4/22/tuition-cap-legislation-opens-door-loopholes/) on this bill last year, and we saw right though the sweet-sounding tuition freeze to the hotbed of issues underneath. This time’s no different.