While I share the concerns of many about the way in which the new tuition policy was communicated, to oppose the new financial model itself is to protest against something many students and student groups have advocated for over the past few years: a move toward a more affordable University by significantly reducing student indebtedness, while continuing to meet 100 percent of demonstrated need and maintaining a need-blind admissions process. I want to stress the need to evaluate before assuming.
Last year the Virginia General Assembly reduced the University’s budget appropriation by $8.2 million, absorbed into this year’s operation costs. This year, the General Assembly gave the University additional enrollment funding but also mandated unplanned increases in compensation as well as retirement funding. Next year we face more spending requirements for: faculty/staff compensation, safety measures, support services, legal compliance costs, library operations, student life and financial aid. Moreover, the anticipated end to the national Perkins Loan program, a low-interest federal loan, also leaves the University responsible for funding the Perkins Loan $3.5 million replacement cost.
Combining these factors, the University’s budget for next year falls short by $30,278,000.
With that in mind, the Board used different approaches to fund the deficit: 1) endowment spending distribution, 2) debt restructuring, 3) organizational excellence, 4) balance sheet/investment earnings, 5) philanthropy and, as a last resort, 6) tuition. However, after exhausting these first five options, the University’s total amount of funds available to address the deficit — without tuition’s contribution — was $21,536,000. This left a gap of $8.7 million between the University’s $30.3 million costs and $21.5 million available funds before considering tuition.
To cover this gap, the University had to pass a tuition increase. The total base undergraduate tuition and required fee rate increase for current students is 3.6 percent for Virginians and 3.7 percent for non-Virginians. These are certainly not trivial increases, and we all realize higher education should not be a privilege of wealth; in fact, around 34 percent of University students receive some sort of financial aid every year. However, we must acknowledge the practical realities of running a public University in a state that continues to cut funding for higher education.
It has been a goal of the University to promote affordability and improve the AccessUVA plan since the creation of the Cornerstone Plan. Last June, the Board openly committed itself to creating a more sustainable, long-term financial plan that could continue to meet 100 percent of demonstrated need, maintain need-blind admissions, reduce need-based loans and increase grants for Virginians, lower net price for the majority of Virginian families and ensure a high value of education.
Directed toward low- and middle-income students in Virginia, the affordable excellence model reduces loan caps by $10,000 for all Virginians who demonstrate financial need: they were reduced from $14,000 to $4,000 for low-income and $28,000 to $18,000 for all other Virginians. As such, this policy means to address the middle-income squeeze by reducing debt for both low- and middle-income families, not to exacerbate it.
Finally, we have to consider how the University — when using previously mentioned resources to cover operating costs — can fund such a reduction in loans. The model does so by including two $1000 tuition step increases, one for in-state, incoming students entering Fall 2015 and another for those entering in 2016, added onto their base tuition. This money will directly funnel into financial aid and is revenue-neutral, meaning the University doesn’t make anything off of it. This is where the widely-cited 11 percent tuition increase number comes in: 11 percent will be the increase from the current price of tuition and fees to what incoming Virginian students will pay in August. Yet, within the in-state population to whom the model applies, current students are exempt from these step increases while the loan reductions apply to all current and incoming Virginian students who demonstrate financial need.
Finally, for Virginia students and families who may want a more certain price over any tuition fluctuations, the model includes the development of a four-year, fixed-price tuition contract available for a premium; the Board also publicly committed to a long-term goal of making AccessUVA a paramount funding priority.
Just as we must fairly evaluate finances, we must also evaluate procedural transparency. There is no denying that the policy information was posted shortly prior to the day of the meeting and was voted upon directly after its introduction at the Board meeting. I also thought the proposal was intended for discussion.
As stated before, since June the subcommittee publicly outlined and conveyed its plans for addressing affordability. Subcommittee members have openly and publicly conferred about the general policy with students, administrators, alumni, parents and more through having structured conversation, posting documents online and live-streaming meetings, and through less formal avenues. As the student member of the Board, I have also tried my hardest to be grounded in a comprehensive student outlook regarding Board issues — soliciting input from and presenting information to a broad assemblage of student and student groups — and I will continue to do so. However, the last several days have made it clear that the last step of the process — the specifics of the policy — was not clearly communicated. In that last step, many students feel they were not given sufficient time to understand the policy and feel unheard or unrepresented in the quickly-passed decision.
As with any financial policy, this one is not foolproof, nor was the manner in which it was communicated. I personally think the specific proposal should have been publicly available earlier than it was. If students felt unheard, I take responsibility. All of us, myself included, should constantly evaluate and reevaluate how we communicate, but we should not let that obscure the benefits of the policy itself. In order to realize both its merits and shortcomings, we must fully, and fairly, evaluate the facts before rushing to judgment. If we draw assumptions too quickly, we may miss something that “can expand access to talented Virginians of more modest means” and enrich our community.
Meg Gould is a fourth-year in the College and the student member of the Board of Visitors.
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