Eaves calls on Barbour to stop the tax on our future
By Kate Royals
May 31, 2007
Democratic gubernatorial candidate John Arthur Eaves held a press conference Thursday to address his aversion to the recent college tuition increase and the current governors response to what Eaves referred to as a tax on our future.” Eaves, along with a team of college students affected by this tuition increase, called on Gov. Haley Barbour to hear the requests of Reps. Steve Holland, D-Plantersville, and George Flaggs, D-Vicksburg, to hold a special session and to finance the eight public universities in Mississippi who have increased their tuitions by six percent.
"People tell me every day that Im running against Goliath, but I dont believe Haley’Ғs our Goliath,” Eaves said. “The real Goliaths in this state are mediocrity, corruption, poverty, injustice and low expectations. Higher education helps prepare our kids for the defeat of these huge Goliaths.”
Eaves argues that this increase in tuition makes higher education, the tool for future Mississippians to conquer the “Goliaths,” less available to many middle- and working-class families.
“ӓInvesting in higher education is one of the best things we can do to drive economic development in Mississippi. Education is investing in economic development, and this is simply a tax on our future,” Eaves said. “We have had special sessions held for Toyota and engine plants but this is even more important in order to provide economic opportunity. Without access to higher education, who will fill these high-tech jobs?”
Victoria Warnsley, a student at Mississippi State University, also believes that this tuition increase is ultimately detrimental to the future of the state.
“Im telling you today itҒs wrong for our schools to add a tuition increase on us for the ninth time in the past decade,” Warnsley said. “And when two representatives, although not on the same side as the governor, ask for a special session and he refuses, hes asking the colleges to use the students to their advantage and profit from them. I believe Mississippi can do better.”
Holland and Flaggs propose that the $200 million estimated to be in reserves at the end of the fiscal year “could be used to offset the $25 million needed to fully fund IHL for the oncoming school year,” they said in a statement.
“Im supporting these students and those representatives who know that this is just as important of an economic opportunity as Toyota was, or the engine plant, or any of the economic development programs that are going on in our state right now,” Eaves said.
Posted by ladd at 02:37 PM in Legislature, Education | Email this entry
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