Tuition hike to bolster faculty excellence, student retention

The trustees voted 7-0, with two members abstaining, to not only adopt the new tuition charges, but to endorse IU President Myles Brand’s proposed spending priorities for the 2001-02 academic year. Most of the new money raised from the tuition hike will be invested in efforts to preserve IU’s nationally ranked reputation and to help students, specifically at IUPUI and the other regional campuses, stay in school and get their degrees.

The president told trustees that the task of crafting these tuition and budget guidelines was “probably more intense than any other budget-setting exercise.” Market factors were a consideration, he added, “but the driving factor must always be the academic goals of the institution.”

On the Bloomington campus, the primary goal will be to strengthen IU’s ability to keep and attract top-notch instructors and researchers. The campus has among the lowest faculty salaries in the Big Ten, making IU Bloomington a target for better-funded institutions seeking to lure away award-winning faculty.

“Faculty are the single most important aspect of a quality institution,” Brand said. “Unless we have competitive faculty salaries, we will find ourselves in a situation the people of Indiana will find unacceptable.”

At IUPUI and IU’s regional campuses, the major focus will be retention, or helping students complete their degrees. Bloomington campus retention rates already are exemplary, according to Brand. “But our other campuses need improvement.”

Additional revenue from the tuition increase will maintain and expand programs that provide mentors, counseling and remediation for first- and second-year students. The new funds also will help create more full-time faculty posts, making instructors more available to students.

IU has worked to find existing funds for these programs, according to Brand. The governor and the Indiana General Assembly did their best to help, given Indiana’s difficult revenue picture. Lawmakers approved critical start-up funding for the new School of Informatics, in addition to giving the green light to proceed with several buildings on IU campuses throughout the state.

The university also has worked aggressively to hold down administrative costs, even though factors such as increased enrollment, additional regulatory and reporting requirements, and unfunded mandates have increased that workload. In fact, an independent state study concluded IU’s administrative costs are well below average, Brand pointed out.

Andersen Consulting, in a recent report on IU’s administrative services, praised the university for its efforts, so far. The firm has recommended additional measures that can cut future costs.

The tuition increase means that a typical full-time, in-state undergraduate student at IU Bloomington will pay $146.55 more per semester than the previous year, for a total of about $2,098. Out-of-state Bloomington campus undergraduates will pay nearly $486 more or about $6,095 per semester.

Graduate school tuition varies by school. Tuition at IUPUI and the other regional campuses is charged per credit hour.

Increases in federal and state grants and loan programs, combined with tax breaks and an IU program aimed at blunting the effect of the tuition increase on incoming students, will help preserve the university’s commitment to accessibility, trustees were told. Roughly $400 million in combined state, federal and IU financial aid will be available to IU students. That figure includes an estimated $75 million to $80 million in IU assistance alone.

IU’s tuition increase is lower than those of some of its peers in the Big Ten and the Midwest region. Ohio State University announced a long-range plan to raise tuition by 9 percent each year for the next five years. The University of Illinois adopted a 5 percent tuition hike each year for its Champaign-Urbana campus for each of the next four years, in addition to mandating a $500 surcharge on tuition for each of the next two years. The Iowa Board of Regents last year enacted a 9.9 percent tuition hike for the University of Iowa, Iowa State University and the University of Northern Iowa.