MY DAD is a teacher. My mom is a teacher. I have a little sister who is a senior in high school and getting ready to go off to college in a few short months, and I live in a part of the country where the cost of living is at nearly its peak. Needless to say, money is not in abundance in the Parcells household these days. Therefore, you can imagine my chagrin last spring when I heard the news that due to the, ahem -- Virginia -- budget crisis, out-of-state tuition for University students was being raised 8 percent. However, my anger had slowly subsided until Tuesday when I picked up The Cavalier Daily and saw talk of yet another tuition hike staring back at me. Given the dire economic straits in which the Commonwealth of Virginia finds itself, a tuition hike may be neccesary. But should it be implemented, there are a few very important restrictions that need to apply.
First and foremost, before moving forward we need to make sure that there are no other options available to us for raising funding. Because a great deal of our funding comes from private contributors, we need to make ceratin there is no way to extract more revenue from these types of sources. In addition, perhaps we could entertain the possibility of admitting more out-of-state students. Since we all know out-of-state tuition is exceedingly higher than that of in-state, a little bit of a shift in the in-state versus out-of-state percentages might work to our advantage in this time of need.
Furthermore, should this tuition increase go into effect, for a plethora of reasons it simply cannot apply to out-of-state students. While our tuition has risen consistently in past years, in-state tuition has remained frozen. Many Virginia residents love to tell you how the massive gap between in- and out-of-state tuition for the University of Virginia is legitimate because Virginia residents pay the tax dollars that support this university.
This argument holds little water since the Commonwealth of Virginia has refused to grant the University funding greater than 25 percent of our educational costs in recent years and in fact has given a percent much closer to 10. Because many Virginia residents have been so quick to reference their state affiliation in order to reap its benefits at the University, in this time of crisis -- a crisis that is solely the result of the Commonwealth's poor financial management in recent years -- it is these same Virginia residents that should have to deal with the problem.
Perhaps most importantly, if student tuition is raised, the revenue generated by this measure needs to go one place and one place only: back to the benefit of the students.
The University is suffering. Our departments are being frozen at best and pared down at worst. Assuming students make it into a library before their new closing times, they aren't allowed to print off their computers anymore. If we are going to be paying higher tuition, let the money go to the professors, to the libraries, even to renovate Cabell Hall.
But it cannot, I repeat, it absolutely cannot go to the Commonwealth. The tuition raise that was passed last year sends that money straight to the very same Commonwealth that has denied us significant funding in recent years. This
measure was not acceptable last year, and it will not be acceptable now.
Finally, one more thing has to be considered before any tuition hike is implemented. This tuition raise is obviously being considered as a possible solution in a crisis situation. The thing about crisis situations, however, is that they don't tend to last forever.
One might pose the following scenario: Say we put a tuition raise into practice -- what happens when the Commonwealth finally gets back on its feet? Is the University going to voluntarily lower tuition
in accordance with the changing economic circumstances? Call it Yankee cynicism, but to me it seems unlikely. I can't remember the last time I heard of a university lowering its tuition "because it could."
In addition, is funding from the Commonwealth going to rise finally to a respectable percentage when all of this is over? If this plan is going to go through, we need to specify the long-run terms and conditions of this policy change before it is applied.
No one wants to see this school go under, and I do believe that we all need to do our part. However, we have to lay responsibility for this problem in its rightful place, and in moving forward, we must be careful to think about all facets of both our present and our future.
(Laura Parcells is a Cavalier Daily associate editor. She can be reached at lparcells@cavalierdaily.com.)
Read More
PATEL: Personal development courses support students beyond the gradebook
By Heer Patel | YesterdayThe University must rethink its approach to education beyond traditional major-specific requirements and mandate personal development courses.
EDITORIAL: Commercialization threatens U.Va.’s educational mission
By Editorial Board | 2 days agoAfter all, measuring the University’s worth in terms of accrued capital, operational efficiency and numerical rankings molds this space into just another cookie-cutter institution.
YOUNIS: Why every U.Va. student should say yes to English
By Ayat Younis | 6 days agoEvery student at the University, regardless of their primary field of study, can professionally and academically benefit from engaging with the English department.
