Experiment in higher ED: Colorado to test nation's first college voucher system.

• Author: Cada, Chryss
• Position: College Voucher - Education

While higher-education administrators across the state try to sort out Colorado's first-of-its-kind voucher program, end user Kelli Dail has decided it's a "good thing."

"I think the program will be an added benefit to myself and other students," said Dail, a freshman at the Larimer campus of Front Range Community College. "Not everyone knows about the money the state (already) subsidizes our education with."

Dail plans to get an associate's degree in science at Front Range before continuing her studies in marine biology at a four-year university.

"It just makes more sense to take your basic classes at a community college and then go on to a higher-priced university," she said. "That's what I'm doing and what most of my friends are doing."

While the stipend provides a psychological boost to students, it's a mistake to think that the state-issued $2,400 voucher, which is the same for all colleges and universities, will "go further" at a community college than at a higher-priced university.

The $2,400, or a portion of it per credit hour that a student takes, goes to the school to generally apply to that school's costs. It does not reduce the tuition charged each student per credit hour.

In fact, since tuition charges have increased over the years, critics of the voucher program say it actually puts more of the responsibility of paying for a student's education on the students themselves.

Yet the state's community colleges, which through most of the winter and early spring have been under a sustained political attack from state officials, are expected to be the true winners in Colorado's experiment to fund higher education through the program.

"This program is bold and visionary in terms of increased access," said Briggs Gamblin, executive director of communications for the Colorado community college system. "Families who in the past might have thought higher education was beyond their means will now realize their kids can go to college--and a large segment of them will be going to community colleges."

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The program, dubbed the "College Opportunity Fund," was signed into law in April, and the first vouchers are scheduled to be issued in the fall of 2005. Colorado already pays about one-third of the cost of college for state residents, a bill that will total $592.4 million for 2004-05.

However, rather than state colleges and universities receiving funds from state government based on enrollment, as they still will this year...