Tuition

Gov. Corbett toured a Malvern factory powered by state-of-the-art robotics Tuesday, then hit the automatic-reset button on a replay of the state university tuition wars that dominated the battle over his first budget proposal last year. Corbett insisted to reporters during his tour of the high-tech Siemens Medical Solutions plant that his 2012-13 plan for a steep new cuts in state aid to higher education - including 30 percent less money to state-backed schools such as Pennsylvania State and Temple Universities - could be dealt with by reducing campus operating costs, not by raising tuition.

Everyone at Pennsylvania's public colleges is asking the question, although they're terrified of the answer: What happens if Gov. Corbett continues to slash funding for higher education? A nearly 20 percent cut last year, and now a proposal for a reduction of up to 30 percent this year - keep it up, and all funding could quickly disappear. "Everyone is worried," said Larry Catá Backer, an international-affairs professor at Pennsylvania State University and incoming president of the faculty senate.

Mayor Nutter is scheduled Thursday to announce a program to advise high school families about college costs. Education Financing Service (EFS) will place tuition counselors in three Philadelphia high schools: Kensington High School for the Creative and Performing Arts, A. Philip Randolph Campus High School in East Falls, and Imhotep Institute Charter High School in Olney. An archdiocesan school and schools in Delaware will also be selected for the pilot program. The EFS program will initially be open to 50 families at each school on a first-come, first-serve basis.

Pennsylvania's state universities would take another big funding cut under Gov. Corbett's 2012-13 budget proposal to be released Tuesday morning, according to sources familiar with the plan. The 14 universities in the Pennsylvania State System of Higher Education, including West Chester and Cheyney, would see their state funding cut 20 percent under Corbett's proposed budget as of Monday, sources confirmed. The four state-related universities - Temple, Penn State, Lincoln, and the University of Pittsburgh - would be cut 30 percent, sources said.

WASHINGTON - Fuzzy math, Illinois State University's president called it. "Political theater of the worst sort," said the University of Washington's head. President Obama's new plan to force colleges and universities to contain tuition or face losing federal dollars is raising alarm among education leaders who worry about the threat of government overreach. Particularly sharp words came from the presidents of public universities already frustrated by more state budget cuts. The reality, said Illinois State's Al Bowman, is that simple changes cannot easily overcome deficits at many public schools.

ANN ARBOR, Mich. - President Obama embraced the idea of federal action to restrain the rapidly increasing cost of higher education, giving a boost to a policy idea that has been gaining steam. His proposal that colleges and universities cut costs or risk losing out on some federal aid was part of a larger package of "college affordability" ideas that the president unveiled Friday in a speech at the University of Michigan. Obama wants to increase funds for higher education, mostly through an expansion of federal loan programs.

ANN ARBOR, Mich. - President Obama embraced the idea of federal action to restrain the rapidly increasing cost of higher education, giving a boost to a policy idea that has been gaining steam. His proposal that colleges and universities cut costs or risk losing out on some federal aid was part of a larger package of "college affordability" ideas that the president unveiled Friday in a speech at the University of Michigan. Obama wants to increase funds for higher education, mostly through an expansion of federal loan programs.

When Cabrini College said last month it was cutting undergraduate tuition and fees 12.5 percent for the 2012-13 academic year, officials said it was important to bring Cabrini's $33,176 price tag back under $30,000. The Radnor college was alone among the seven small Catholic schools in the Philadelphia area in charging more than $30,000. What's more, only three small Catholic institutions from Maine to Virginia cost more than Cabrini this year. The six other local colleges in Cabrini's cohort are Chestnut Hill College, Gwynedd-Mercy College, Immaculata University, Holy Family University, Neumann University, and Rosemont College.

PITTSBURGH - Principals in the Catholic Diocese of Pittsburgh were told this fall that parents who received tuition aid had to lobby state legislators to pass a school voucher bill - and document it - or lose their funding. Whoops. Never mind. After Ronald T. Bowes, the assistant superintendent for policy and development, e-mailed those instructions to the principals Oct. 20, the diocese sent its own directive Nov. 16 saying Bowes had "misstated long-standing diocesan policy relative to the distribution of financial aid to parents.

With college tuitions at record highs and families in a mood for bargains, a handful of institutions - including Cabrini College in Radnor - are doing what once seemed unthinkable: cutting prices. Cabrini, a small, private Catholic school on the Main Line, announced it was reducing tuition 12.5 percent, from $33,176 to $29,000. The price will take effect for the 2012-13 school year and remain at that level through May 2015. Housing and fees are about $13,000 extra. Other schools are offering even bigger discounts.