The University Board of Visitors gave Leonard W. Sandridge, executive vice president and chief operating officer, authorization last Friday to levy a mid-year tuition surcharge for students that could be as high as $500 per student.
Any surcharge will be an addition to base tuition in spring 2003. Tuition may be increased permanently in the fall of 2003.
"It would be a one-shot increase," University Rector John P. Ackerly III said.
According to Ackerly, Sandridge will make the decision regarding the surcharge amount, but Ackerly and William Goodwin, chairman of the Board finance committee must approve his actions.
"I will agree to whatever [actions] he takes before" meeting with the Board, University President John T. Casteen III said.
It still is unclear how the potential $8.4 million garnered from a $500 surcharge per student would affect the University's budget.
"Sandridge will have to sharpen his pencil and make a decision as to that," Ackerly said.
In advocating the surcharge, Ackerly hopes the University could avoid "irreparable harm" by its implementation.
He mentioned the possibility of other state schools eliminating entire academic departments as one potential damage the University might sustain if new revenue is not generated.
Casteen said a major priority is avoiding staff and faculty layoffs, and surcharge revenue could aid with this cause.
"The Board and I are determined to use every reasonable remedy before beginning to consider layoffs," he said.
Casteen also said that an increase of $500, one of the higher amounts suggested, is likely because of the Commonwealth's dire financial straits.
"You can imagine how concerned the Board is to avoid some catastrophic mid-semester event," he said.
University faculty, particularly those in the financially needy College, view the surcharge as a vital necessity, Faculty Senate Chairman Michael J. Smith said.
Otherwise, the University will experience "a slow slide to mediocrity, or maybe not so slow," Smith said.
There is widespread support among Board members for the surcharge, but opinions differ on its mechanics.
Board member Charles L. Glazer is in contention with a provision in the proposal that reads, "the surcharge may or may not be applied in like amount to all categories of students."
"Everybody should share the pain and burden equally," he said. "Everyone will benefit" from the surcharge.
Glazer said an equal surcharge should be accompanied by financial aid for those who cannot afford it in full.
Board member Terrence P. Ross supports the clause.
"Simply assessing $100 to everyone is very similar to a regressive tax system," he said. "I'd prefer a more progressive assessment."
Ross also feels it is possible to keep the surcharge at $200 dollars or less through "making a more serious effort to trim back some administrative fat." Ross, however, said he would not support additional cuts to the University's academic divisions.
University leaders seem to agree that the mid-year surcharge only illuminates the need for other revenue sources in the near future.
Ackerly has suggested that the University might consider borrowing money in the future to maintain quality.
"It's an ordinary thing in the life of business to borrow money now and then," he said.
Both Casteen and Smith support another option that would significantly increase in-state tuition next fall.
The State Council on Higher Education in Virginia statistics show that the University's $4,556 in-state tuition and fees for this year is almost $1,500 less than that charged at the second-tier University of Connecticut, where the tuition is in excess of $6,000.
Casteen said that if "dramatic increases" in tuition were coupled with "undergraduate financial aid" and were "phased over several years," he would support the increases.
Casteen said he is in favor of increases "only because state support is now so low that no one who follows the numbers can project that the state will ever get back to paying its bills for education."
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