On Friday, the state Board of Regents - with an eye toward placating budget-minded lawmakers - discussed a proposal that would force such students to pay a larger share of their tuition.

It's not a good idea to keep changing majors, said Commissioner of Higher Education Richard Kendell. "Better settle on a major and settle early," he told regents and college presidents.

"Once you get [120] credit hours and haven't graduated, the state support will stop" if the new plan is adopted, he said.

The rule of thumb for a bachelor's degree at Utah's four-year public colleges and universities is a minimum of 120 credit hours. A two-year associate degree requires 60 credit hours.

Many students often reach those thresholds, but have not taken enough classes in a specific field to graduate. If they exceed those thresholds without a degree in sight, the taxpayers' portion of their tuition would end and such students would pay the full rate.

For example, full undergraduate, resident tuition and fees at the University of Utah for the 2003-2004 school year was $8,496. The student's share was $4,078, or about 48 percent of the total. At Salt Lake Community College, tuition and fees were $2,546 with the student's portion at $1,171, or about 46 percent of the total.

Utah taxpayers pay the difference.

That tuition scenario was one of several that educators examined during discussion Friday. They want to develop a five-year higher-education funding plan that finds the proper mix of state dollars and student-paid tuition that keeps the doors open to all qualified students working to wrap their education in a timely basis.

In years past, state legislators - attempting to balance higher education's budgetary needs with other state priorities - have urged educators to rely more on student tuition as a major source of money.

Higher education's share of the total state-funding pie has declined from 17.3 percent in 1993-94 to 15.4 percent in 2004-2005. It is not likely that higher education will receive significantly larger state increases over the next few years, according to Kendell.

The state's share of per-student support has declined in recent years from $5,694 in 1998-99 to $4,641 in 2004-05, he said - a decrease of $1,053 per student.

On Friday, educators also asked what more they do in a period of declining public dollars. Suggestions included:

* More online courses for core classes.

* Scholarship incentives for timely graduation as an enrollment strategy.

* Directing more students to the lower-cost schools, instead of more expensive University of Utah and Utah State University.

Regent Chairman Nolan Karras asked if educators could use online technology to teach more of the basic classes for students in different institutions. This, he suggested, would help reduce overhead while eliminating course duplication among the state's nine colleges and universities.

New U. President Michael Young supported most of Friday's discussions, but he particularly cautioned his colleagues against a rush to embrace online courses.

"All we would do is replicate correspondent schools," he said.

"We cannot continue to add sawdust to oak," countered Karras. "We need to run [higher education] as efficiently as we can."

sykes@sltirb.com