Makayla Kinney

The de facto state representative for district 69, James Frank, a longtime Republican resident of Wichita Falls and a Rider High School graduate, disagrees with the amount of Texas funds spent on Medicaid. Frank hopes to improve regulations in Texas, which impacts the amount of funds provided for higher educational institutions.

“I hope to improve the regulations in Texas to maintain job growth, which affects college students,” Frank said.

Students follow a degree plan until they hit the job market once they graduated coming to find out that there are no jobs in their field available, therefore all the money spent towards a degree suddenly becomes worthless.

The amount of funding a school receives impacts the rate of tuition. Frank said, the biggest drain in the Texas budget is the amount of money spent on Medicaid.

Ten years ago, Medicaid accounted for 14 percent of the Texas budget and increased to 21 percent this year, taking away a lot of funding for universities and the job market.

“Right now the biggest drain on the Texas budget is an increase in the funding of Medicaid. Medicaid is taking an increasingly large amount of the budget. It’s projected on Obama care to go to 37 percent in 12 years and if we do not address that, it will affect higher education. If we do not get a hold on these costs, we will just see a spiral increase in tuition,” Frank said.

Obama care is a national program it is also regulated by the states. It pulls money away from every other state program leaving fewer funds to schools and colleges. If the state of Texas were to decrease the amount of money spent on Obama care and Medicaid, students in Texas would see a decrease in the rate of tuition.

“Medicaid is pulling money away from every other state program. I think that is the biggest issue in this upcoming session,” Frank said.

With each new law enacted by legislation, the amount of freedom of citizens decreases. Frank said one thing he believes in is limited restrictions passing in legislation.