<p>[Statement</a> of UVa President Teresa A. Sullivan to faculty and staff | Daily Progress](<a href=“http://www2.dailyprogress.com/news/2012/jul/11/statement-uva-president-teresa-sullivan-faculty-an-ar-2050525/]Statement”>http://www2.dailyprogress.com/news/2012/jul/11/statement-uva-president-teresa-sullivan-faculty-an-ar-2050525/)</p>
<p>So what’s Sullivan up to by saying this?</p>
<p>“We receive less money today from the state’s General Fund and tuition to educate an in-state undergraduate student, in constant dollars, than we did in 1989…The national prominence of Darden and Law indicates the success we can achieve when we are allowed to compete in the market without subsidy; whether this successful experiment could be extended to other fields is a matter of politics as much as economics.”</p>
<p>If I had to guess, I’d say some people are thinking about whether the Comm School could be run more as a private entity, with much higher in-state tuition. There already is a $4000 per year additional cost for Comm School for both in-state and out of state tuition, which is supposed to increase to $5,000 a year in a couple years. </p>
<p>The process is called “siloing” in which a school is run as a separate entity financially, with its own revenues and costs, except they pay back 10% or so of revenues to cover common services provided by the University. Under that siloing process, state funds are not used for the law school and business school. Under siloing there might be little or no tuition reduction for in-state students. I’d certainly imagine any possible changes would be phased in over a period of years, so they didn’t harm current students.</p>
<p>I can’t imagine UVa could silo off any other programs. There is extremely high demand among students for UVa’s nursing spots, but most people would consider that program to be of public benefit to Virginia. The Curry School also is probably largely viewed as being of public benefit to Virginians. </p>
<p>I understand that UVa has added higher fees to engineering to try to reflect costs.</p>
<p>As noted previously, more and more public universities are varying their tuition costs for various programs based upon costs and demand. For example, Pitt charges a few thousand more per year for engineering, and nursing costs $4000 more a year in-state than arts and sciences.</p>
<p>Agree that many state schools upcharge the tuition of their business and engineering schools. UVA should be doing that. At UVA, though, how much of a difference would that make? Comm school is only two years, right? </p>
<p>Law and Darden went way beyond getting “silo-ed” with modest tuition upcharges. They’ve become “financial self-sufficient”, which is a euphemism for going private. Is that what Sullivan is angling for? Or threatening if Richmond doesn’t send more dough?</p>
<p>Hypothetically, McIntire could become a 4 year program that would require separate admissions directly from hs (such as SEAS & ARCH) as opposed to applying in their second year. That is currently one the the drawbacks of the program when students choose UVa. They are often giving up assured acceptances from other four year business programs to come and possibly not be accepted to McIntire in their second year. It’s a risk. It could then possibly be run as Darden and Law. I’m not saying I advocate this, or I understand the mechanics involved, but it would be much more feasible as a four year program.</p>
<p>edit: Nor am I saying this is the type of thing Pres Sullivan was alluding to. I’m merely following the conversation.</p>