As the Board of Visitors convenes this week, students may not realize the difficult decisions that it must make. With its funding from the state in continuous decline, its operating budget strained because of increased maintenance and health care costs and its enrollment capacity facing upward pressure from demographic changes, the University is forced to walk a fine line. It seeks to expand access to higher education while retaining its status as one of the nation's elite public universities. A major part of this balancing act is the preservation of the University's unique institutional character, an asset that legislators in Richmond and citizens throughout the state often fail to appreciate when pushing the Board to enact policy changes.
In particular, the University's moderate size - both physically and in terms of enrollment - provides it with several advantages compared to other institutions. Whereas schools such as the University of Maryland and the University of Michigan each have about 40,000 undergraduate and graduate students, the University's total enrollment is about half of that. This has allowed it to maintain a broad selection of small classes as well as mandatory on-Grounds housing for first-year students, features that help foster a close-knit community. Moreover, the University has managed to preserve its intimate environment by clustering most new classroom buildings, dormitories and other facilities within walking distance of Central Grounds.
Yet population increases throughout the state, particularly in Northern Virginia, have led state legislators and parents of high school students to call for the University to boost its enrollment and its ratio of in-state to out-of-state students. Unfortunately, these propositions threaten the very facets of the University that make it so desirable to college applicants. With only 10.3 percent of the University's Academic Division operating budget coming from the state and no funding increases in sight, rapid enrollment growth would involve attendant tuition increases. Restricting the number of out-of-state students, whose higher tuition subsidizes the cost of attending the University for in-state students, would cause the same problem. Thus, even if more admission slots were opened to Virginia residents, the overall accessibility of higher education would be depressed because of higher costs and the overburdening of financial aid programs such as AccessUVA.
The reality is that there is no quick fix to the problem of enhanced educational opportunity at a time when the state's population is growing. The quality of life for the student body would decline significantly if enrollment were increased without additional funding for infrastructure improvements and faculty hiring. Students would have more difficulty getting to know their professors, experiencing the camaraderie of first-year dorm life, and finding available space in which to study, dine or relax. As University President Teresa A. Sullivan said, "If the parents of Northern Virginia get what they want, they won't want what they get."
This is not to say that it is impossible for the University to improve access to education in the coming years. The Board, for its part, is expected to approve a reasonable plan that would add 1,400 undergraduate and 100 graduate students at the University by 2019 on top of the previously established goal of increasing enrollment by 1,100 undergraduate and 400 graduate students from 2004-2014. Sullivan also cited alternative methods of degree conferral sponsored by the University such as its online engineering program, the adult degree completion opportunities that are offered at several state community colleges and the proposed "three plus one" academic plan that would allow students to obtain a bachelor's degree in three years and then graduate with a master's after a fourth year. Furthermore, there is room for growth at the School of Engineering and Applied Sciences, which Sullivan said is the smallest of the engineering schools found among the University's peer institutions.
Although these are all good ideas from the University administration, the state government must be willing to take steps of its own to expand higher education. Creating a larger population of Virginia college graduates is important, but only if policy-makers work with University administrators to protect the characteristics of a University degree that make it worth having in the first place.
Read More
CARTER: U.Va. Health owes clarity to transplant patients
By Nathaniel Carter | 2 days agoUnfortunately, this negative press is fully the fault of U.Va. Health — it failed to address significant stakeholder concerns when crafting its justification.
EDITORIAL: Upholding medical amnesty is a collective effort
By Editorial Board | 3 days agoUniversity leadership, Greek life organizations and students themselves must recommit to the safety provided by an effective and knowledgeable use of medical amnesty.
KURTZWEIL: Dockworkers’ unions cannot avoid the threat of automation
By Paul Kurtzweil | 4 days agoInstead of continuing to demand decreased automation, the union should work with the legislature in the hopes of driving investment into the reorganization of the current workforce.
