<p>[UVa</a> board mulls increased tuition, enrollment | Charlottesville Daily Progress](<a href=“http://www2.dailyprogress.com/cdp/news/local/article/uva_board_mulls_increased_tuition_enrollment/58070/]UVa”>http://www2.dailyprogress.com/cdp/news/local/article/uva_board_mulls_increased_tuition_enrollment/58070/)</p>
<p>So would UVa be considered less desriable if it goes back to admitting about half the applicants and average test scores go down a bit?</p>
<p>I would die for this…If UVA raised tuition up it would lower the amount of applicants + my 31 would hold a good shot at getting into UVA. Would be unfair however for all the people who need aid… Ups and downs to this proposal.</p>
<p>“Rather than altering the in-state/out-of-state ratios, UVa officials said, a better idea would be to increase total enrollment, creating more spots available for both in-state and out-of-state students.”</p>
<p>Honestly I couldn’t agree more… Also I’m thankful that I can pay full tuition because I have a feeling if UVA is in need of money they will accept less OOS students that can’t pay full tuition. Thank god I’ve worked the past 5 years saving up for UVA…</p>
<p>“So would UVa be considered less desriable if it goes back to admitting about half the applicants and average test scores go down a bit?” </p>
<p>It would definitely drop in the rankings at USNWR.</p>
<p>This is stupid. UVA can’t even properly house, feed, and MOST IMPORTANTLY teach the 3000+ first years it admits every year. We have intro engineering classes of 500 (cs), and that professor also teaches a 2nd class on top of that!!! And the article says they should now teach a 3rd class??? Are you kidding me!!! THEN, There isn’t enough money to hire more TAs to help with that number of students, you have 45 students in a lab where it is past the fire capacity, computers broken every week. Unless you are admitting only students who pay full OOS fare you will not have enough money to hire faculty and teaching assistants and materials for that many students. Let alone housing which is in shambles trying to construct these new dorms which aren’t going to allow for this kind of increase until they are done if at all, and the 3 dining halls which are always overcrowded and you have to wait 30 minutes to get a plate of food when classes are in session. I don’t overestimate that figure, I lived in Brown for 4 years and I would time how long it took me at certain times of day (even with cutting the line with our Brown Swipe) and would purposely only eat at 11am or 1:30pm etc because that is when the lines were lowest, only 10 minutes to get in and get food. The classrooms, especially in places like Old Cabell, are completely out of date and need updating – look to the new Comm School for inspiration there. But how can you afford to do those things with all of the other renovations (dining halls, dorms, etc) that will be needed, especially considering all of the money is being sunk into the south lawn across the street and not old cabell yet??. Finally the buses, oh my goodness, those things are so old and break down all of the time and you can’t even get on certain routes at certain times. UVA would do well to replace them with nice enrgy efficient new models, but they already come every 10 minutes and are packed. Could Charlottesville+UVA support twice as many buses? Because I think that is unrealistic. Unless they have a business model addressing how they would have enough money to do all of these things, I think the current student load is too much without enough revenue so I’m not sure what to do about that. </p>
<p>I’m not sure what the current summer revenue is, but if they did require students majoring in Politics/econ/whatever else was named in the article that has 300+ graduates every year, to do summer classes and complete their degrees in 3 years, I think that would produce more revenue since summer tuition is just the same as regular session if you take full loads but they could get them out in 3 years so making 4 years worth of money in 3 years. There was an article on CC featured about this a while ago too.</p>
<p>So talk to any engineer about major caps, or professors about how their teaching load is already too much (without raises!!), TAs about ridiculous work conditions, students about not being able to get enough help or eat in a timely manner or live in a proper dorm etc about how UVA would be with 400-500 more students every year, there’s no way the OOS money would compensate to do the things that need to be done. Already low standards will just be pushed lower in the business model like they are now and everyone will suffer.</p>
<p>That is my 2cents.</p>
<p>There’s no capacity, where will they live? Who will teach the classes? Your looking at a substantial investment in facilities, services, and faculty.</p>
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<p>I know my daughter would not have even considered UVA if their acceptance rate was that high; she thought it was too high already. Furthermore, I agree with rjkofnovi, the school would most definitely drop out of the top 25 USNWR if their acceptance rate goes higher and subsequently test scores go lower. The full paying OOS students wouldn’t consider the school as prestigious and would opt for other higher ranked privates thus causing a decrease in this pool of revenue. Lastly, like Hazelorb said, increasing enrollment is a poor idea IMHO. Part of the allure of UVA is that even though it is a state school, it has the “feel” of a southern private because of its size. This sets it apart from the other larger reputable publics like Berkeley, UNC, and UMich.</p>
<p>Faculty who are hired primarily to teach already teach 3 or, depending on their contract, 4 courses/semester. The ones who teach 2/2 are research faculty, and that teaching load is standard at most research-intensive institutions (except in the case of some science faculty, whose salaries are partly paid by grants, and who teach even less). A “2/2” teaching load at a research institution also includes dissertation direction and the supervision of graduate students, which can be very time-intensive; research faculty also generally are assigned to the most responsible and time-consuming administrative jobs. They can’t simply “pick up another course”–increasing their teaching by 50%–and remain sufficiently committed to their research. If UVA starts increasing teaching load, faculty with well-developed research programs might give them up–making UVA a less desirable place for grad students and less intellectually lively overall. But more probably, given the way faculty members have made a life commitment to their research fields, they will start looking aggressively for positions at schools that will give them the time they need. The faculty members who will be successful in getting jobs elsewhere will, of course, be those UVA should most want to retain. In other words, increasing teaching load is practically a recipe for diminishing the prestige of the school.</p>
<p>For once, I’m actually ashamed of my school’s board. I hope Casteen will be able to sleep well at night if this ever happens, because I know TJ will be rolling over in his freaking grave.</p>
<p>My courses finally suffered this past year due to budget cuts and UVa not being able to hire more STS course teachers. I’d have to consider my alumni donations if they’re going to try to drag in more people and then whine for more alumni donations. Shame on you UVa, it should not cost more for certain students to attend school. You whine because the e-school numbers are low, well gee, this will really help! Especially since my EE labs were old and decrepit and I could never find a 1K ohm resistor for the life of me in those hell holes. And guess what, ask me how many Saturdays I was working my butt off because there aren’t enough TAs to help out during labs, while you were off playing golf on your million dollar salaries from UVa. Now I’m batteling my way into the job market and was forced to apply to jobs I didn’t like because I need to pay off loans because tuition is already ridiculous.</p>
<p>I hope I still feel it’s necessary to donate when my money will most likely end up in the Comm School because UVa is so fixated on being like everyone else but still toping rankings. Congrads UVa.</p>
<p>Love
Ashamed Alumnus</p>
<p>PS- State of Virginia, don’t think you’re getting off any easier either. Stop selling tollroads to private companies, stop putting fountains and statues in front of the water treatment plants, and pouring money into giving inmates better beds. SUPPORT YOUR DAMN SCHOOLS. Otherwise, there will be no more lawyers, engineers, financial analysts, teachers, nurses, or gov’t workers to fill your offices. Get it together state</p>
<p>What is going on with UVA? It seems like all the sudden the school is deciding on making some drastic changes. EA, Higher tuition, More admits, whats going on?</p>
<p>Not saying that I agree with this proposal but wanted to throw a couple of things out there.</p>
<ol>
<li><p>Test scores would not have to go down if U-Va increased enrollment. The article itself notes that 578 NOVA students were turned down this year with test scores at or above U-Va’s average – if each of those students was admitted and attended scores would actually go UP. What’s happeining right now is that there are so few spaces and U-Va is having to make such fine distinctions that they’re forced to take into account intangibles (extra-curriculars, for example) having little to do with academic ability. </p></li>
<li><p>That jc40’s daughter wouldn’t have gone to U-Va if the admit rate were higher is pretty pathetic. What counts is the quality of the student body, not the admit rate. There are many excellent schools with relatively high admit rates. U-Va’s current student body is really not all different than it was 10 years ago when it comes to objective academic ability.</p></li>
<li><p>UVAorBust should chill out. The school isn’t “deciding on” drastic changes. It’s merely considering options.</p></li>
</ol>
<p>Novaparent, if you don’t think raising the tuition for instate students isn’t a drastic change than I don’t know what it. I’m sure if the tuition raise 5k+ many, many VA residents will be furious…</p>
<p>nice post shoebox10.</p>
<p>now i’m really glad that i didn’t pick UVA…</p>
<p>i feel so bad for state schools right now. we need education reform so badly… why can’t these mindless politicians and state governments think in the longterm… ugh i can’t even bring myself to rant about this again.</p>
<p>I think ALL schools propose similar models when thinking about future budgets, etc. I am sure there have been plenty of proposals that we never see or that never make it past idea. At this point they are simply proposals, nothing has been decided on and I don’t think decisions of this measure would happen overnight either. But schools need to look at things from all angles, time will tell how they happen.</p>
<p>UVAorBust, we just lost our long term president, which would explain why many things are changing with our new president.</p>
<p>UVAorBust you missed my point – these are PROPOSALS, not changes. Nothing has happened yet. </p>
<p>Having said that, were U-Va to raise in state tuition substantially and continue to offer need blind admissions and 100 percent financial aid (which is what this proposal is all about), then I don’t necessarily see this as a lose-lose proposition for in state students. </p>
<p>(Which reminds me – you said earler that you’re hoping that because you don’t need aid your 31 on the ACT will get you in over someone else who needs aid. U-Va is need blind in admissions; they’re not going to consider your financial status in deciding whether to admit you.)</p>
<p>I think the problem with tuition increase is that I know some instate students who already choose places like VT over UVA because of the cost, and my other IS friends all chose UVA over OOS because of the comparatively low cost. If IS tuition increases, not only will students be more likely to go to competing VA schools like WM or VT, but they will also not see the value in staying IS and will choose to go OOS on merit scholarships instead. The reason I did not stay IS is because there are no public universities in PA on par with UVA – Penn State as a whole does NOT compete, though the honors college is comparable, and Penn is an Ivy of course which is private. The same is true of my brother – even with a merit scholarship to a university in state, he chose to go to UMich because the academics were better there and it cost the same as a private school. OTOH in VA you can get a really great education at UVA for a fraction of the cost of comparable places OOS.</p>
<p>Now… They can raise OOS tuition as much as they want – it’s not UVA’s job to provide an affordable education to OOS students, they can go IS for that reason. I say this because there are so many rural and underserved areas in VA already, if you are a STATE school and you have problems in YOUR state then you should be fixing those problems before you go tackle other states’. I mean, hello, I was working at Upward Bound this summer and I saw first hand the kind of disparity, forget about the disparity you can even see in places like Charlottesville. Do you expect other states’ universities to fix this problem for you?? Cause that is crazy. Fix your own problems. You care obviously so do something. I know those kids in rural appalacia are calling to you as well, but the taxpayers pay for you to help those kids in Cville and Fluvanna and Richmond and so on. There is a great Jewish? saying – do what you can, in the time that you have, in the place that you live.</p>
<p>There are already so many discussions on this forum about how going to UVA OOS if you need full financial aid is just ridiculous already. So I don’t think you’re eliminating the option for that many OOS students (and they can’t complain because they aren’t VA taxpayers is the truth of it). UVA is cheaper for me OOS (by $10,000!) than many of my friend’s private schools here in PA. So even raising it a little will still keep them competitive with those schools, the schools OOS students are deciding between. And UVA already accepts a staggering 33% OOS - much higher than the other public top schools in CA, NC, etc. We all agree it would hurt UVA to accept a lower percentage than that, but it’s not like UVA is barring its doors to all OOS students is my point. OOS students are typically used for revenue and the fact that it is harder to get in OOS than IS means it’s not hurting the academic quality of life; the fact that it is a minority of the student body means it is not hurting socially either (no rich OOS-poor IS disparity like I hear about at UMich from my brother). So I still think UVA has at least $10,000 to increase OOS tuition before that kind of disparity would start showing up, and it would even then still be under control if the percentage stayed the same (lots of NOVA kids have similar financial backgrounds). But if you raise $10,000 OOS, you lose the competitive edge with those schools I was talking about, so I think raising maybe $5,000 OOS would still be competitive, would not close too many doors, would not negatively affect the student body in academics or socially, and would keep UVA cheap comparatively OOS still. I mean, you can look on the common data set and see only half of students at UVA even receive financial aid… UVA will never be Harvard that can eliminate tuition for low and middle class families and only charge upper class families. They need to do what they can in the place where they are, VA.</p>
<p>I mean maybe you all will disagree with me; my IS friends balk at OOS tuition and no one really wants to pay more… But the experiences I’ve had working as a teacher with students in VA and even as a TA here at UVA have really shown me that these kids will NOT get anywhere, whereas middle class families have lots of options and won’t end up back in poverty if they cannot afford UVA, they can go to a decent state school and get a job and still be middle class; they don’t have the same kinds of worries that affect lower income students that make homework the last of their concerns, if their teachers are even preparing them for college at all… I’m not saying you should hand UVA over to them; I saw one of my best friends, valedictorian of her class in rural Louisa, get straight C’s here… Programs like Upward Bound exist for 100% valid necessary reasons… But if you increase IS tuition you ARE closing one of their only doors. That is not true about OOS tuition; there will always be IS schools for those students. In the ideal world, you do not have to choose, like Harvard; but in the world where UVA is considering increasing enrollment by 500 per semester to make ends meet, you need to make a decision somewhere.</p>
<p>I’d also like to say about the test score thing: for those 500 students from NOVA with high test scores to get in, you would need to remove the county quotas UVA has in place (denies, whatever, there are threads on this and statistics say otherwise see those threads, great article in washington post, etc). Otherwise only some (probably, half… UVA is typically 1/3 NOVA 1/3 ROVA 1/3 OOS) of those students will get in and more students with statistically shown lower scores (again, I blame the preparation, not the intellect) from ROVA getting in and overall decreasing scores. So then UVA has to decide what is more important – improving disparity in its state, lowering test scores, or increasing the amount of full paying OOS students to offset costs and test scores, is more important.</p>
<p>U-Va does not have regional “quotas” for in state students. That’s a myth.</p>
<p>“UVAorBust, we just lost our long term president, which would explain why many things are changing with our new president.”</p>
<p>Your new president was the old provost at the University of Michigan. Btw, Michigan is about to enroll it’s largest freshman class ever in it’s history since it’s founding back in 1817. It is projected that over 6,300 students will make up the class of 2014, about 300 more than last year. There are many concerns at the Michigan board of this! There is your precedent for more enrollment.</p>
<p>It is a shame that the University is subject to a Board of Visitors appointed by the Governor.</p>