State colleges face 11.6% budget cut

This is a red herring! It is fairly simple to grant tuition and fee waivers to those who have a demonstrated financial need. There are many people who prefer to spend their money on golf, vacation homes, and large screen televisions rather than education. I am in favor of using state money to subsidize those who really cannot afford to pay but we ought not to subsidize those who can.

Massachusetts already ranks near the bottom of the 50 states in support of public universities, so this comes as no surprise. When it comes to education, only teachers unions get support from Beacon Hill.

When is the Governor going to be willing to do what Romney (and Healey) were willing to do; forgo his salary?

This is what the Globe has said about his two homes:
"MILTON HOUSE -- Deval Patrick and his wife have owned their home in Milton’s desirable Columbine section since 1989. During that period they have taken out 10 different mortgages on the house, sometimes carrying three at a time."

"BERKSHIRES VACATION HOME -- The Patricks are building a 24-room,
10,000-square foot mansion on 77 acres in Richmond, a rural town drawing affluent second-home buyers. They are carrying mortgages of $4.6 million on the Richmond house and 14 acres adjacent to it.

Let the jerk sell one and turn in his salary!!!!

Maybe if they charge out of State tuition to illegal aliens they could make up some of the difference. Suspending the raises for the teachers and managers would help. My guess is they will raise tuition.

Have you ever seen the student population at a community college? The typical student is working full-time, taking classes and, most likely, are not fighting an addiction to golf. Most of them would qualify for your proposed tuition/fee waivers. (However, their books cost the same as students' at a private university.) I suspect that for many students, community college is their only chance at the education they need to eventually earn a living wage. If you grant waivers for tuition and fees how do you propose to fund the professors, heat, security, library, etc?

This is not at all a Red Herring. The truly poor can get Tuition Waivers. But those families making $60,000 a year who are overwhelmed with high housing costs, utilities, Health Care transportation, etc---get no help at all. These are the folks who make just enough to get no help at all. And the Tuition and Fee hikes will hit them hard.

Connecticut take $ from its two casinos and distributes part of it to the state college system. Two years ago the University of Connecticut at Storrs build a $100M addition to the university with slot revenues gleaned from the casinos share of payments to the state. Since Bay Staters represent about 36% of the two casinos' patrons, Massachusetts residents basically contributed one-third the funding to the new $100M building at the University of Connecticut. Who says MA residents don;t support public education? We do! But our Legislature and people like discredited former Speaker Sal DiMasi, and state Rep. Dan Bosley prefer that we support public education in Connecticut rather than in Massachusetts. Go figure!

To clarify a couple of things:
1) Although any money one can save is great, and sometimes students qualify for a tuition waiver based on their MCAS Scores, whether they are in DSS or a few other special circumstances, I don't know of any "fee waivers" for college fees. However, tuition waivers can be a little decieving because the cost of tuition at all the public colleges is only about $1,700 out of the cost of attendance (UMass Boston has a COA of about $10,000-$12,000 and UMass Amherst's COA is $20,000+).
2) The other misconception is that these tuition waivers are based on need- that is not true, they are based on MCAS Scores. Need based financial aid usually comes in the form of 3 types: grants (federal and state), institutional (or college awards) and scholarships (awarded by outside organizations). I don't know of any state college waivers based on income level.
3) To the person who thinks that undocumented/illegal immigrants receive in-state tuition: I wish they did. Many of these students have great grades in high school, and have lived in this country almost their entire lives, and are here illegally through no fault of their own. Unfortunately, once they graduate high school (at which they are guaranteed admission), they are stuck and will not qualify for any financial aid.