BATON ROUGE, La. -- A proposal that would allow four years of increases in tuition costs for public college students was narrowly rejected Monday by the Louisiana House, falling two votes short of the two-thirds vote needed for passage.

Supporters said the schools need increased revenue to attract faculty, update facilities and offer a quality education to students. The state's college management boards support a tuition boost. The bill would raise $27 million for the schools in the first year.

"Nobody likes a tuition bill, but our colleges and universities need it if we're going to compete," said Rep. Don Trahan, R-Lafayette, chairman of the House Education Committee and sponsor of the bill.

Opponents said many students can't afford the tuition hike, and they took diverging views on the state's finances. Some opponents argued the state, with coffers bursting thanks to high oil prices, should give the colleges more money to stave off tuition increases. Other opponents questioned whether the state could afford the $5 million increase next year to the free college tuition program known as TOPS, a cost that would grow annually as tuition costs grow.

Gov. Bobby Jindal hasn't taken a position on the bill.

Under the proposal, public universities and colleges could raise tuition from 3 percent to 5 percent each year for four years. The increase would be based on a formula that looks at how the individual schools stack up against peer institutions in the South.

Trahan can bring the proposal up again for a vote this session if he believes he's picked up two more votes for passage. The House vote was 68-31, two votes shy of the 70 votes needed for passage. Louisiana is the only state in the country that requires a two-thirds vote of the Legislature for tuition hikes.

Rep. Cedric Richmond, D-New Orleans, said the state should offer more dollars to the colleges to avoid higher costs for students, rather than increase costs on residents who already are struggling under higher gasoline prices.

"I don't think it's fair for a state that has the ability to pay for this to ask our constituents to do it instead," Richmond said.

Trahan said students who receive free tuition through TOPS won't pay for the increase, the universities were going to use some of the money raised to provide more financial aid to help needy students, and the proposal included a hardship waiver.

"I would not have brought a bill that was hard on our students. I would only have agreed to do a bill that is a modest increase. It's an inflationary increase," he said, adding the schools haven't raised tuition in three years.

Lawmakers on the House budget committee said the $5 million increase to the TOPS program next year isn't included in the budget proposal that received approval from the House. However, senators reviewing the spending recommendations for next year could shuffle dollars to the TOPS program to cover the costs.

If approved by the Legislature, the largest tuition increase would fall on students at LSU's main campus in Baton Rouge. Tuition there could grow by $234 a year for the first year and could be as much as $1,000 a year larger by the 2011-2012 school year, the final year for increases.

Other first year increases would range from $44 for students at the campuses of the Louisiana Technical College to $185 for students at Northwestern State University in Natchitoches. Students at two-year community colleges could see increases of between $58 to $74.