Bacon's Rebellion

Democracy Thrives in Sunlight

Tuition Showdown May Be Approaching

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by

Dick Hall-Sizemore
in ,

Christopher Newport University campus

by Dick Hall-Sizemore

Virginia colleges and universities are saying that they will have to raise tuition for the next school year unless the General Assembly gives them more money.

This is going to be fascinating to watch. Governor Youngkin has been able to get appointments to the boards of visitors, but not yet enough to constitute a majority for most. Most boards have three or four members whose terms expire June 30 of this year. With those appointments, some of the boards would have a majority of Youngkin appointees, but not all of them. Another factor is whether the current boards will wait for Youngkin to replace the members with expiring terms before taking action. After all, Democrats in the General Assembly have made it clear that there will be no action on any amendments to the budget until after the primaries in late June. The Virginia Tech board, for example, has scheduled a virtual meeting on April 21 to vote on tuition hikes (no public comment will be accepted). In any event, whenever the boards decide on tuition for next fall, it will be interesting to see how the Youngkin appointees vote.

Here are some examples of the potential membership changes in board membership. I included Christopher Newport University because one of its board members was quoted extensively in the Richmond Times-Dispatch story about the need for additional funding.

University of Virginia. Board membership: 17. Current Youngkin appointees: 4;  Members with terms expiring: 4 ;  Potential lineup after July 1:  9 non-Youngkin appointees, 8 Youngkin appointees.

Virginia Tech. Board membership: 14. Current Youngkin appointees—4 (1 carryover); Members with terms expiring: 4. Potential lineup after July 1: 8 Youngkin appointees, 6 non-Youngkin appointees.

William and Mary. Board membership: 17. Current Youngkin appointees—4. Members with terms expiring: 4. Potential lineup after July 1: 9 non-Youngkin appointees, 8 Youngkin appointees. There is one interesting wrinkle in the W&M situation. One BOV member, John Littel, is a member of the Governor’s cabinet (Secretary of Health and Human Resources).

Virginia Commonwealth University. Board membership:  16. Current Youngkin appointees: 4 (1 carryover); Members with terms expiring: 4. Potential lineup on July 1: 8. Youngkin appointees, 8 non-Youngkin appointees. Last year, VCU’s chief financial director said the university could not go another year with flat tuition.

Christopher Newport University. Board membership: 14.Current Youngkin appointees: 5. (He was able to fill a vacant position last year in addition to those whose terms were expiring). Members with terms expiring: 3. Potential lineup on July 1—8 Youngkin appointees, 6 non-Youngkin appointees.

My Soapbox

This is an incongruous situation: the Commonwealth experiencing record budget balances and Governor Youngkin getting $4 billion in tax cuts and wanting more, while higher education says it needs to raise tuition and students from lower-income families reportedly choosing not to go to college because they cannot afford it.

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24 responses to “Tuition Showdown May Be Approaching”

  1. StarboardLift Avatar
    StarboardLift

    Wouldn’t it be great if these BOV members, as representatives of the Commonwealth citizenry, turned to the institutions and said, “you need to do more with less?”

  2. James A. Bacon Avatar
    James A. Bacon

    The ability of Team Youngkin to make a difference at Virginia’s public universities this year will hinge upon their ability to sway moderate BoV members. Thus, I don’t expect much action on the more polarizing culture-war issues like DEI, but I do expect some closer scrutiny of university cost structures.

    One can sympathize with the challenge universities have holding tuition & fees constant in the face of our current inflation spike. But there is a case to be made that there is loads of administrative fat to be cut.

    1. M. Purdy Avatar
      M. Purdy

      Do you think that culture war issues like DEI will be any more popular in 2024?

      1. Lefty665 Avatar
        Lefty665

        With the turn of events at Disney and Bud Lite it looks like the tide may be turning on the wokies. CRT/DIE are next objectives.

        Tuition increases may be among the tactics. UVa could save $10M plus in salaries by eliminating DIE positions.

        1. M. Purdy Avatar
          M. Purdy

          I’m sure most Americans would rather not spend time thinking about culture wars over crappy beer and a dumb mouse…but if that’s your strategy, please proceed.

          1. Lefty665 Avatar
            Lefty665

            America’s crappy culture is not my creation. In recent years it has been the invention of wokesters, in the examples above at Disney, Bud and places like UVa.

            Americans can win some of those wars simply by declining to pay to support them, as Disney and Bud are finding out.

            It can work the same way with racist CRT/DIE, but the method is less direct than individually declining to pay at the cash register. It takes working through our institutions, like boards and legislatures. That takes a little longer, but the issues are the same. Starve the beasts.

    2. StarboardLift Avatar
      StarboardLift

      You have to get past 720 employees of UVa before you land on salary lower than $200,000. And when I check on one of the Overpaids, Susan Harris, I see she’s enjoying a raise. 2017 – $211.009 to 2022 $250,000. I don’t know any private sector functionary types whose salaries rose more than 18% since 2017. https://govsalaries.com/salaries/VA/university-of-virginia?page=13

    3. James C. Sherlock Avatar
      James C. Sherlock

      I can’t sympathize with them at all, Jim. They can take an axe to their bloated management and administrative staffs and solve the problem in one meeting.

    4. Nathan Avatar
      Nathan

      No sympathy here.

      What does it cost to educate students for the first two years at a community college vs 4 year institution? Encourage more citizens to take advantage of transfer agreements to save everyone money.

      Don’t want to attend a community college? That’s fine. Pay full freight!

      Through system agreements, students who graduate from one of Virginia’s 23 community colleges with an associate degree and a minimum grade point average may obtain GUARANTEED admission to more than 30 of the commonwealth’s colleges and universities. Please see the list below for copies of the current agreements.

      https://www.vccs.edu/transfer-programs/

  3. kls Avatar
    kls

    VT [and its foundation] owns A LOT of land and buildings — WHY?

    Sell it all to make tuition affordable; or better yet… give it back to the tribes VT supposedly support [according to the apologizing dribble VT begins many meetings with: https://digitalsc.lib.vt.edu/exhibits/show/indigenous-vt/land-acknowledgement%5D.

    Get rid of the non-teaching niceties like camping equipment rental or the US Passport office [the USPS does this 1/2 mile from campus].

    1. VaPragamtist Avatar
      VaPragamtist

      I agree with what I assume is your your overall sentiment–that VT doesn’t need to raise tuition because they have more than enough money. Just look at the increase in unrestricted net position in their financial report over the last several years. They’re making money, and a lot of it.

      At VT, 1% increase in tuition = about $5 million. The current proposal is to increase up to 5%, or about another $25 million. The rationale the bean counters give is that the state is giving 5% raises; some of their employees are still state employees; and to be fair, they need to also give 5% raises to university employees. Since 80% of their operational expenses are personnel costs, any increase to salaries hits hard.

      What I would argue is that VT’s upper management are overpaid. I’m not talking about the highest levels (university president, provost, coaches, VP for advancement, some faculty who bring in a ton of grant money, etc.); those salaries are more market-driven and by-and-large they bring in more money than they take out. But rather the next tier down. The army of VPs and AVPs who earn three times that of their counterparts in other state-supported agencies.

      Of the top 100 paid employees at Virginia Tech, no one makes under $265k. #100 is the VP for communications. What other state entity pays their health of communications $266k?

      The VP for Finance comes in at #45 at $333k. What other state-supported entity pays their head of finance $333k?

      #85 is the head of government relations at $277k. What other state-supported entity pays their chief lobbyist $277k and then has the nerve to beg the General Assembly for more money or else they’ll raise tuition?

      For reference, the Governor of Virginia makes $175,000. But he’s political. Operationally, the head of Virginia’s Department of Corrections (a massive, billion dollar enterprise operation), makes $203k. The head of Virginia’s Department of Health during the pandemic–a medical doctor–made $231k.

      https://www.controller.vt.edu/content/dam/controller_vt_edu/resources/financialreporting/financialstatements/Virginia%20Tech%20Annual%20Financial%20Report%20FY2022%20print%20v2.pdf

      1. VaPragamtist Avatar
        VaPragamtist

        I’d add that the Foundation’s holdings include the ARECs and other facilities, etc. Arguments can be made about the wisdom in holding onto property that isn’t being used. . .but at the same time, the Foundation exists to invest and increase its wealth for the benefit of the university.

        Selling off everything isn’t the right answer. It would also only result in one-time funding which shouldn’t then be used for recurring operational expenses. The key is to find cuts. And the bloat in administration is where those cuts can be found.

    2. James Wyatt Whitehead Avatar
      James Wyatt Whitehead

      The land comes from the Morrill Land Grant Act of 1862. A key achievement of Lincoln’s Republicans and signed into law by Virginia’s Unionist government during the War Between the States. The purpose was to promote agricultural and industrial education. 30,000 acres of land were divided between the Virginia Agricultural and Mechanical Institute (VT) and later the Virginia Normal and Collegiate Institute (Virginia State Univ). I am sure VPI ended up with bulk of the acreage.
      https://digitalsc.lib.vt.edu/items/show/12806

  4. Stephen Haner Avatar
    Stephen Haner

    See, Dick, your mistake is assuming that if the colleges state they need additional dollars, they actually do. Absent far more financial detail than they usually provide, it could be they just want to raise prices because they think they can. Certainly the schools flush with applications can. The boards are independent and will act as they will.

    1. Dick Hall-Sizemore Avatar
      Dick Hall-Sizemore

      No, I was around DPB too long to think that higher ed actually needs what they say they do. However, state funding has decreased proportionally. Higher ed finances are too opaque for me to deal with other than generally. I would advocate providing sufficient funding to cover whatever salary increases are being provided to state employees, plus enough additional funding to increase the state share of E&G costs by 10 percent and then require them to reduce tuition and fees by ten percent, except for fees that go to cover previously authorized debt service on capital projects. (The General Assembly should scrutinize more closely these capital projects that have to be paid for through student fees.) They can deal with inflation through the use of turnover and vacancy savings and tightening their belts some.

      1. James C. Sherlock Avatar
        James C. Sherlock

        See my basic reply. Cut management and administrative staffs in half and then cut tuitions. No other actions needed

  5. VaPragamtist Avatar
    VaPragamtist

    For Dick or anyone else interested, the APA recently released a comparative report on VA’s IHEs, its first in several years:

    https://www.apa.virginia.gov/reports/HigherEducationComparativeReport2020.pdf

  6. James C. Sherlock Avatar
    James C. Sherlock

    The option not discussed by Dick is the one that matters in so many ways.

    Cut the management and administrative staffs in half at all of these colleges and universities and they would be wallowing in money.

    Tuition cuts would be the order of the day.

    1. Lefty665 Avatar
      Lefty665

      Musk has cut 80% of Twitter’s staff. Admin at colleges and universities could suffer from similar bloat.

      The comment below showing that you have to get down past 720 employees at UVa before salaries dip below $200k is a hint of where to start looking. Those 720 likely include professors, Docs etc with competitive outside pricing, but on the admin side…

  7. killerhertz Avatar
    killerhertz

    Tuition increase is a good thing. Let kids pay for their education instead of at the expense of the taxpayer getting useless degrees the market won’t support. Why do conservatives keep funding the institutions responsible for demolishing them in the culture war? Are you all that thick?

    It’s plain and clear. The people that run these institutions are your ENEMY. If you didn’t learn that during COVID you are hopeless.

  8. NotJohnConnor Avatar
    NotJohnConnor

    In the past two years, the minimum wage as gone from $9.50 to $12, and people earn way more than that at McD’s. So, cost of landscaping, grounds crew, and dining halls have gone up. Two 5% salary increases for full time employees, which only cover 1/2 of inflation so a net real pay cut, but the state only covers half ( 2.5% ) of the mandated increase. Costs of utilities are up 40%. Yes, there is a lot of administrative bloat, but that much of the costs on instructional side are fixed if you want to serve students. Dorms, climbing walls, and dining halls come out of a separate pot of money related to room and board and fees, and are independent of state funds. That part of university funds must be self supporting. So if JMU wants fancy climbing walls, they are paying for it outside of tuition.

  9. Charles D'Aulnais Avatar
    Charles D’Aulnais

    Tuition costs and pricing? Kind of right up there with the pricing of airline tickets, hotel rooms, hospital charges, pharmaceuticals and healthcare premiums. It’s all so transparent and easy to explain. To understand it, one need only have these basic 6 facts. First,

  10. NotJohnConnor Avatar
    NotJohnConnor

    One issue with the administrative bloat is that much is due to federal and state mandates, or requirements for reporting and accreditation. The laws need to change, but many view it as a make work program for higher ed degrees. But in the short term, the positions can’t be cut under current law.

  11. Nathan Avatar
    Nathan

    “This is an incongruous situation: the Commonwealth experiencing record budget balances and Governor Youngkin getting $4 billion in tax cuts and wanting more…”

    Money in the state coffers doesn’t justify a need by Higher Education. That money belongs to the citizens, and we need it back much more than Higher Education needs its overpaid do-nothing administrators.

    Thanks to the Democrats, inflation is raging, and many of us can’t keep up. Those who do get cost of living increases, are way still behind as any increases are too little and come long after the inflation hurts them.

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