Although the Kansas Board of Regents and Kansas University officials aren’t ready to talk about it yet, it appears that a guaranteed tuition plan for KU will be on the table at this week’s Regents meeting.

The plan outlined by Student Body President Jason Boots may offer more predictability to the cost of a college education, but the main thing it “guarantees” is the ever-rising cost of tuition at KU.

The idea is that when a freshman enters KU, he or she will be guaranteed a tuition rate for the next four years. That figure, according to a presentation KU made to the regents last year, would be arrived at by taking current tuition, applying predicted rates of inflation for four years, and taking the average. That scenario would result in the fall 2007 freshman class paying $6,240 per year in tuition, a 13 percent increase over the current $5,512 tuition.

The good news is that tuition would be set. That obviously would have been an advantage for current KU students who have watched tuition more than double since 2001. The new program, however, won’t necessarily keep students from paying more for their college education.

First, while the university is promising students a stable tuition rate for four years, no such promise likely will be applied to housing costs or the many student fees that are tacked on to tuition. In addition to the general student fee that funds student health services, the KU bus system and other services, many students pay per-hour fees ranging from $13 to $125 for the privilege of taking courses in KU’s professional schools. It won’t matter much if tuition is steady if such fees continue to rise.

The four-year tuition guarantee also penalizes students who, for any reason, don’t attend KU for four years. This, in fact, may be a calculated decision by KU officials to try to discourage the enrollment of freshmen who aren’t adequately motivated or prepared to pursue a four-year degree. They’ll pay the higher average tuition regardless of how long they stay.

The guaranteed tuition plan may be an incentive for students to complete degrees in four years, but it also would penalize students who must attend the university part time – perhaps because they don’t have the financial resources to be a full-time student. That’s regrettable, but apparently acceptable to KU officials.

If KU officials want to offer predictability to incoming students, a fairer way to do it would be to set out a four-year tuition schedule that includes graduated inflation increases. That would allow students to plan without making them prepay for educational services they may never receive.

Rising college tuition is a nationwide problem. At a time that the country should be turning out many more college-educated students, it is, in many cases, raising the cost of higher education beyond what many students can afford.

KU’s guaranteed tuition plan might help some students plan for their higher education costs, but it also has the potential to make it more difficult for some students to attend KU and complete degrees. For that reason, the Board of Regents must carefully consider the more subtle details of the plan they apparently will consider this week.