Michelle Ugenti, Arizona State Representative, Defends Tuition Bill To Students: 'Welcome To Life'

An Arizona House committee passed a bill last week that would require every student at a public college in the state, regardless of economic status, to pay a minimum of $2,000 in tuition.

As Think Progress noted, nearly 100 Arizona students attended the committee hearing to speak out against the bill, HB 2675, expressing concern that it would make it more difficult for many students to afford college. Rep. Michelle Ugenti (R-Scottsdale) responded bluntly in favor of the new measure: "Welcome to life."

Rep. Matt Heinz (D-Tucson), who voted against the bill, criticized his Republican colleague for her remarks.

"I feel these students are being greeted with open hostility," he said.

As The Arizona Republic reported last week, the bill was sponsored by Rep. John Kavanagh (R-Fountain Hills) after hearing that nearly half of Arizona students did not pay tuition during the 2009-10 school year, whether through scholarships or need-based financial aid programs.

A staffer for the Arizona Board of Regents told the Arizona Republic last week that the "nearly half" was "an anomaly," due to an increase in federal grants as well as that year's tuition rates. Christine Thompson, vice president of government relations for the regents, told the paper that the figure is now closer to 25 percent.

The Arizona Board of Regents is the governing body for the state's three public colleges as well as for the Arizona Students' Association and has openly opposed HB 2675.

The bill will now move to the full Arizona House for a vote.

Also on HuffPost:

Comments

[John Little]

07:39 PM on 03/05/2012

This is the Tea Bagger's strategy for waging class warfare. Picking on the one institution that has any hope of all of rescuing Arizona The State University system. How embarrassingly short-sighted. Ugenti and Kavanaugh..bad for Arizona, bad for education, bad for economic and image recovery. I think Michelle and John will be introducing a bill this session allowing "preppers" tax incentives for warehousing food, guns and munitions for the "end of times". Only in Arizona...well, maybe Utah and Idaho too.

[Mike Triggs]

05:55 PM on 03/03/2012

I'm embarrassed to say that both Representatives John Kavenaugh and Michelle Ugenti are my legislators. They call themselves conservatives butt Michelle Ugenti managed to squeeze out enough taxpayer dollars to buy herself a laptop with leftover public funding for her campaign. The "REAL" fiscal conservative in the race, Paula Pennypacker sent the Arizona treasury a $1,600.00 check in taxpayer funding she didn't spend. These two legislators talk big, but obviously don't always practice old-time Republican fiscal restraint when it comes to themselves.

Mike Triggs - former Executive Director of the Minnesota Republican Party and Precint Committeeman in LD 8.

[Caribbean Chic]

08:45 AM on 03/02/2012

Helloooooo!!! How else can we keep those pesky peasants in their place!

[splashy]

06:48 AM on 03/02/2012

Sounds like the wealthy are trying to block competition from the "riff raff" poor who they think should not even be in college. Creeps.

[Allen Bouchard]

05:32 PM on 03/01/2012

Michelle Ugenti thinks that poor people shouldn't be allowed to get an education: -that's- a snob, Mr Santorum.

[bravo11delta6]

03:12 PM on 03/01/2012

One thing missing from every youngster's upbrining these days is the lesson that life is not fair. A lot of times life sucks.

When you teach these kids those lessons they become slightly hardened to the fact. They can deal with it.
When you don't, you end up with a whole generation (millions) of kids who absolutely cannot handle adversity.

Then they think committing suicide is a reasonable response to someone shooting them with spitballs in study hall.

[splashy]

06:48 AM on 03/02/2012

This is about keeping the less wealthy from getting an education.

[bravo11delta6]

08:54 AM on 03/02/2012

Oh really? Last time I checked public schools were free.

How are they being kept from getting an education. Don't worry, I'll play the Jeopardy theme while you're trying to find a way to dispute this.

[aristippe]

12:44 PM on 03/01/2012

8000 bucks for a college ed isn't bad.

[splashy]

06:49 AM on 03/02/2012

It's enough to block some very poor from getting an education, leading to a waste of talent and intelligence that could lead to much innovation and creativity.

[aristippe]

12:21 PM on 03/02/2012

Actually they could take a federal loan

[nadohawk]

11:06 AM on 03/01/2012

I think they should possibility have a little fiscal responsibility in their college education. Since I knew about much my education cost including a ridiculous cost-of-housing, I made every effort possible to graduate a year early to drop the cost. I wonder if students knew how much money their education costs, would they cut out the social life a tad bit to graduate early.

[Stephanie Beavers]

01:45 PM on 03/01/2012

1. A lot of college students are graduating later because on top of being full time students they are also working all though college.

2. I sure knew how much my college education costs and did all I could to save money INCLUDING getting financial aid to entirely cover my tuition, living at home when times got tough, and working. I still had plenty of fiscal responsibility, but without financial aid I wouldn't have been able to attend.

[splashy]

06:51 AM on 03/02/2012

Exactly! Your talents, intelligence and abilities would have been wasted if the right wingers had their say in it.

I'm always astonished at the short-sightedness of the right wingers, who think that the poor shouldn't be able to get an education, even though they are sometimes the most innovative and creative.

[CimmerianX]

10:09 AM on 03/01/2012

Looks like GOP wants students to find an extra 2K per year.

Too bad they aren't so stern on having minimum wage raised to a point where this could be affordable....

[LooseCaboose]

09:20 AM on 03/01/2012

Welcome to life under a greedy, selfish and oppressive GOP Ruling Body. To call them a legislature would be a misnomer as it would imply they represent their constituency, instead of legislating their archaic, 1% mentality and values, which we have come to know as "The CONS".
Do the cons make a case for financial need of the college system? NO! The FED augments the tuition offset and they have no mind for Arizona's most important resource, it's people! These Scottsdale types are cranky old snowbirds, migrated with money bags who want to suppress the states natural evolution. They want everything their way and give nothing in return. Look at what they call a governor!

[willowtree3]

08:16 AM on 03/01/2012

I'm confused (not really)
They don't want the 99% to be educated, and they hate the fact that we go through
life with our hands out (their opinion) and yet, how do they expect us little peons
to become the 1%, (that they so dearly love) without an education? The lottery?

[splashy]

06:54 AM on 03/02/2012

That's the long con they have been running for over 30 years, where they put everyone into a catch-22, where they block any ability to advance for the lower classes, then put them down for "lacking ambition" and "being lazy" when the problem is the way they block them as much as possible.

[willowtree3]

05:47 PM on 03/02/2012

Exactly.
But the 99% keep voting for them.
Go figure.

[MichaelPetty]

04:22 AM on 03/01/2012

The GOP is against education and women. How can they lose.

[Juan Donaldson]

11:34 PM on 02/29/2012

"Welcome to life." That phrase by a lawmaker is probably one of the most dangerous, especially if or probably when that mindset begins to spread through out the Union. It saddens me that the elite can oppress the lesser through the law and reinforce their cruelty by calling it legal. As Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. said in his Letter from Birmingham Jail, "everything Hitler did was legal".

[splashy]

06:55 AM on 03/02/2012

Agreed. It's the attitude of those that have toward those they steal from, where they think that we should all just put up with their thievery and cruelty.

[Bones Rhodes]

11:30 PM on 02/29/2012

"Rep. Michelle Ugenti (R-Scottsdale) responded bluntly in favor of the new measure: "Welcome to life."

Virtually every college student is of legal voting age: guess who most of them won't be voting for ? "Welcome to life", Michelle.

[jchandjd]

10:39 PM on 02/29/2012

Too bad the student who got the brush was not one of those gun-toting, Arizona citizens that their state is so fond of. Maybe there needs to be some shots fired in the legislature.