POSTED AT
10:43 PM ON Nov. 29, 2009
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Freshman Abby Mitchell was at a crossroads last fall.
All indications pointed to IU. Her family was in Indiana. Both of her parents are IU alumni. And as a business major, she saw no better opportunity than to study at the Kelley School of Business.
If she were an Indiana resident, she would be able to enjoy all of the benefits of an in-state education, paying a little more than $16,000 per year for tuition, fees, room and board.
The only problem is, she lives in Wisconsin.
“Here I’m paying about $35,000, compared to the $17,000 I would have paid for University of Wisconsin-Madison,” Mitchell said.
According to a Nov. 1 New York Times article, schools across the nation – largely public state universities like IU – are re-evaluating their tuition because of a reduction in state funding.
But while schools such as UCLA have proposed tuition increases of more than $1,000 each of the next two years, Roger Thompson, IU vice provost for enrollment management, said IU has kept tuition increases low.
“We are trying to keep our tuition increases modest as we go forward because we know families are struggling in a difficult economy,” Thompson said. “So we’re trying to recognize and be cognizant of that and make sure we’re pulling down our cost increases as much as we can.”
Part of the need to raise tuition stems from the state’s continual decline of financial support.
Thompson said the state provides funding for Indiana residents, but the funding is not proportional to the number of in-state students. By charging out-of-state students like Mitchell the full price of tuition, the University is able to enroll more in-state students.
“They’re paying the true cost of their education,” he said.
Yet Thompson said increasing tuition is not a phenomenon; as with all prices, it will eventually increase.
“If you look at the share of the University’s budget that’s paid by the state, it’s continuing to shrink and has been for probably 10 to 15 years,” Thompson said.
Thus far, an increased tuition hasn’t affected enrollment. Thompson reported that this year, student enrollment “topped 42,000,” a sizeable increase from about 39,000 enrolled two years ago.
With every increase in tuition, the question of what students actually get for their money is raised.
IU spokesman Larry MacIntyre said student tuition composes the IU general fund, which pays salaries and administration fees. The money does not pay for building maintenance or construction, like the new Ashton Center housing project.
As with other schools across the country, IU has also been pushed to reduce its budget. MacIntyre said to cope with the budget deficit, IU has implemented a salary freeze for the faculty, as well as a reduction in travel budgets and a hiring freeze on administrative personnel. But MacIntyre was quick to note that apart from the salary freeze, IU has avoided reducing its faculty.
“President (Michael) McRobbie is trying very hard to weather this budgetary storm without having any significant impact on the academic mission,” he said. “And so far, he’s been able to do that.”
Though IU has made cuts across campus to meet budgetary constraints, Thompson said, the University has benefitted from large donor contributions. He said the “Matching the Promise” fundraising campaign, which started in 2003, has since exceeded its $1 billion goal.
Yet while other universities across the country have increased a courtship of out-of-state students like Mitchell to capitalize on the higher tuition rate, Thompson said IU has kept the percentage of out-of-state students on par with historical numbers.
“Our goal every year is to enroll somewhere between 36 to 37 percent non-residents,” Thompson said.
Non-resident students account for 44.9 percent of IU Bloomington enrollment this academic year, according to the Official Enrollment Report posted at www.iu.edu/~upira/, an increase of 6.6 percent from last year.
“What we’re most interested in is that we want to enroll the best and brightest students, whether they come from Indiana, around the Midwest, the country or the world,” Thompson said. “The reason we attract so many good Indiana students is that they can come to IU and study with students from New York, Chicago or Los Angeles, among other places.”
Mitchell is currently paying her tuition without the support of financial aid or scholarships. Her parents fully backed her decision to attend IU rather than Wisconsin, but the fact that she pays more than double the tuition of her peers has not gone unnoticed.
“I’m already paying a lot to come here, so I would obviously like to not see the price go up,” Mitchell said. “Even though I love it here, higher tuition makes it harder to justify staying.”