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Tuition hike harms state of University

ONCE AGAIN, the Board of Visitors has decided to raise out of state tuition. This decision is wrong for both out-of-state students and the University as a whole. The Board proposed last Friday to raise out-of-state tuition and fees by 4.9 percent, meaning that out-of-state students will have to pay $18,268 next year. That figure doesn't even include housing or a meal plan. The constant increase in out-of-state tuition eventually will drive away many top out-of-state students.

The University is handicapped by an in-state tuition freeze which has been in effect since 1998. Therefore, the University usually concludes that out-of-state students are the easiest target for making up for the state's lackluster support of higher education. In-state students already pay some of the highest rates in the country for a public college, and therefore it may make sense to pass on the burden to out-of-state students. The problem with this method is that eventually out-of-state students will simply stop applying to the University because the costs will be too great.

Most families don't have the $23,000 - a rough estimate of the total costs of tuition, housing and a meal plan for an out-of-state student - to pay for college each year. The University doesn't have the endowment to match the private institutions - many of them Ivy League - with which it competes, and therefore has a more difficult time in terms of matching financial aid offers. The University's top academic rival in terms of U.S. News & World Report rankings is the University of California-Berkeley. Out-of-state tuition at Berkeley is $14,660 a year. If an out-of-state high schooler was choosing between the two universities, paying $3,600 more to go to U.Va. would not be very appealing.

 
Related Links
  • Cavalier Daily archives: "Out-of-state costs rise by 5 percent"

  • The virtues of out-of-state students long have been debated on Grounds. But it should be clear that the top grades and SAT scores that many of them bring make a University degree worth significantly more than it would be if the school was composed of all in-state students. Out-of-state students also pay a significant amount of the revenue the University makes from tuition. Out-of state students pay over four times more than in-state students on tuition.

    The solution to the problem is to increase funding for the University through other methods. Simply getting rid of the in-state tuition freeze will only make paying for the University more formidable for in-state students. In-state University students will pay $4,236 dollars next year. This figure is similar to the $4,046 dollars that in-state Berkeley students pay. Berkeley can charge less than the University for both in-state and out-of-state students because it gets better support from its state government.

    The Commonwealth needs to step up to the plate and properly fund the Virginia public schools. By using tax revenue to support the public schools, the Commonwealth has a larger base with which to raise revenues. The state has over 6 million people. So a $10 tax raise would increase revenue by over $60 million. Another option for the University is the continuing efforts to get private donations through capital campaigns, but this puts an unfair responsibility on the University, when the state should be contributing more.

    Virginia voters are among the most conservative in the nation. Therefore it comes as no surprise that the majority of voters would like to keep taxes low, and Gov. James S. Gilmore III (R) certainly has managed to do that. The problem is that the University still needs additional funding. What will all the die-hard conservatives do on Grounds when the University ceases to be a top public institution because of lack of funds? All of the tax-saving rhetoric may be easy to say, but when it comes to the University, there should be a broad consensus of support for increased funding.

    The funding must come from the Commonwealth, not from the victimization of out-of-state students. Out-of-state high school students have the luxury of going to other schools since they are paying such high prices at the University anyway. The fact that many of these out-of-state students are capable of getting into the University means that they are qualified at many other top schools. Many of these top schools are privately funded and are able to offer more generous financial aid-packages. In-state students will be the ones left holding the bag if out-of-state students are driven away.

    Currently, Virginia residents get the best deal in the country for a public education at the University. Once out-of-state students are scarce, academic standards will drop and tuition will sky rocket. The Board should keep this in mind the next time it wants to raise out-of-state tuition, and Virginia voters should think about this when they go to the polls in November.

    (Harris Freier is a Cavalier Daily viewpoint writer.)

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