If the UW Board of Regents hears what it would like to hear this weekend, tuition may never increase the same way again.
In the board’s monthly meeting this weekend, the regents will eye the tuition increase trend and some of the optional policies they could adopt to help curb the age-old problem.
Ric Porreca, senior vice-chancellor and chief financial officer at the University of Colorado-Boulder, will address the regents Thursday and explain the pros and cons of cohort tuition.
Cohort tuition is one of the many options the regents will discuss in the coming year to find ways to increase educational quality for students while maintaining the UW System’s resource base.
The plan would initiate a tuition freeze singly for each class, which would maintain itself for four or five years without facing an increase, meaning that a student would pay the same amount of tuition for four or five years as they did their freshman year. This tuition would be higher than current tuition.
Supporters say cohort tuition would make tuition more consistent over a student’s college career, making long-term planning more manageable and encouraging students to graduate more quickly.
The board is also considering other tuition options that would be less of an overhaul of the entire system. For example, they are considering installing a program that would charge tuition on a per-credit basis rather than charging all full-time students the same amount.
According to a university press release, another way the regents are considering to increase revenue in the long-run would be a program that charged non-residents lower tuition if they are the children of UW alumni. Supporters of this program claim that while it may mean the school would garner slightly less tuition money, in the long run, both the state’s brain-gain efforts and possible alumni support would be enhanced.
The regents will also consider a program that would charge tuition based on family income. In this scenario, according to the press release, students coming from families with higher income would pay higher tuition, and vice versa. Supporters contend this program would increase revenue while providing equality based on students’ ability to pay.
Finally, the regents will look at encouraging institutions to offer more courses to adults who may have their tuition reimbursed by employers. The plan would charge tuition for professional and niche programs aimed at adults at a level that would essentially make the programs self-supporting.
All of these programs are part of a new yearlong executive study titled “Building Our Resource Base” that seeks alternative ways of bringing in revenue to UW.
“Unpredictability in state support for public higher education makes it imperative that other sources of funding be developed,” the study states.
But the regents say they are not taking action yet. Rather, they will spend the next year studying these alternatives.
“Each of these options has pros and cons, and some degree of risk or uncertainty in terms of actual revenue enhancement that might result,” the executive summary said.
Options that receive further study will brought to the table in the spring as considerations for future budget proposals.
