<p>I would also like to mention that tuition is now $188 per credit hour. </p>
<p>FUN.</p>
<p>WHOA. $188? Where did you hear this from? That’s… kind of a big increase, not going to lie…</p>
<p>Expect it to go up much faster than inflation now that BF is officially decoupled from tuition amounts. UF is by far the cheapest top public in the nation. Expect the legislature to want to play catchup now.</p>
<p>If only Alex Sink was Governor…</p>
<p>its inevitable. kids 20 years for now will be glad tuition was raised, but yeah we’re getting screwed.</p>
<p>But where exactly did you find the information about it going up to $188 per credit hour? I can’t find that anywhere, on the UF website or through googling stuff…</p>
<p>Currently, $95 of the $168 per credit-hour fee is characterized as “tuition”:</p>
<p>[Fall</a> 2010 Student Fees - Cashiers - University Financial Services - Finance and Accounting - UF](<a href=“http://fa.ufl.edu/ufs/cashiers/2010/fee-tier-ay2010-20108.asp]Fall”>http://fa.ufl.edu/ufs/cashiers/2010/fee-tier-ay2010-20108.asp)</p>
<p>UF has announced that it will increase tuition by 15% over last year:</p>
<p><a href=“http://www.gainesville.com/article/20110609/ARTICLES/110609445[/url]”>http://www.gainesville.com/article/20110609/ARTICLES/110609445</a></p>
<p>So, if you only increase $95 by 15%, the per credit-hour fee becomes $183. But I’m sure UF will also slightly increase the cost of some of the other components that go into the cost of a credit-hour. Therefore, $188 is completely in the realm of strong possibility.</p>
<p>Actually I found this link:</p>
<p>[Cost</a> of Attendance : UF | Office for Student Financial Affairs](<a href=“http://www.sfa.ufl.edu/basics/cost-of-attendance/]Cost”>Cost of Attendance | UF Office of Student Financial Aid and Scholarships)</p>
<p>The website projects total cost of tuition for 2011-2012 to be $5,700 for 30 credit-hours, or $190 per credit-hour.</p>
<p>The UF board of governors approved a 15% increase for next year’s tuition too so be ready. Tuition in Florida can go up until it reaches the national average so we’re probably looking at increases every year until it does.</p>
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<p>Machen realized that UF’s tuition will never reach the national average with 15%/year increases and has therefore recently suggested to bump the annual increase to 30%.</p>
<p>$95 pch on $190…Way to go Rick Scott!</p>
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<p>For sure! Its about time we have someone in office that recognizes that it takes money to foster a great university.</p>
<p>I’m not sure if I follow how increasing tuition will make UF a better university. UF probably derives 5% of its income from tuition, and I doubt it impacts UF’s image much. If we’re talking about making UF a great university from a research perspective, the two requisite things are good facilities and good research. Typically, alumni and/or state money pay for facilities, and professors receive grant money to perform research. Endowed chairs paid for by alumni or corporations pay for top researchers to relocate here.</p>
<p>I actually think increasing tuition hurts UF because it makes the university less appealing to good students who will be lured away by money from other universities. What UF should do is increase the number of out of state students that pay full freight. Right now, UF probably has higher admissions standards for out-of-state students (all the ones I knew during my time were National Merit Finalists, for example), so adding more would not only increase the quality of the student body but would also bring in more money. Further, higher-quality students are more likely to earn more money over their careers, which means more alumni donations. That money will actually come back to benefit UF’s research.</p>
<p>All that research and campaign money is already allocated for very specific projects that the University must use for very specific reasons based on contractual obligations. Its true that SOME donations are allocated for undergrad support but its the least funded category from donations:</p>
<p>[Florida</a> Tomorrow - The Campaign for the University of Florida - Campaign Progress](<a href=“http://www.floridatomorrow.ufl.edu/news/progress.asp]Florida”>http://www.floridatomorrow.ufl.edu/news/progress.asp)</p>
<p>So even though UF makes a boatload of money, it can’t do whatever it wants with it. </p>
<p>The state mandates that all of the differential tuition money most go towards hiring new professors, which has a direct impact to the undergraduate classroom experience. So the more money UF can obtain to lower the student/professor ratio, the higher the rankings (big part of USNews), the better the student-professor interaction will be, etc.</p>
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<p>No arguments here. The alumni absolutely need to have control over how their money is spent.</p>
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<p>Dollars don’t have ID tags on them though. In practice, all that does is set an absolute floor for how much money is spent on new professor hiring. This floor might even be less than they were spending on average anyway, and so I doubt much will change as a result of increasing tuition. Who knows where the extra money will actually go.</p>
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<p>What makes you say the floor might be lower? Here is a quote from an article that came out after Differential Tuition was first approved:</p>
<p>When funds from the Tuition Differential Program become available in Fall 2008, UF will hire 200 more faculty members and 100 advisers over several years. The program will allow UF to incrementally raise tuition up to 40 percent over four years, so long as it does not exceed 15 percent, about ,500, per year.</p>
<p>[UF</a> has new tutorial to attract more diverse faculty - The Independent Florida Alligator:](<a href=“http://www.alligator.org/news/uf_administration/article_77578aab-3399-5102-927a-7dff9e04f76c.html]UF”>UF has new tutorial to attract more diverse faculty - The Independent Florida Alligator)</p>
<p>This extra tuition money is in addition to the money that is already spent on faculty and advisers. So in other words, they are not going to replace the current source of faculty/adviser funding with the revenue from Differential Tuition.</p>
<p>About that Tuition Differential Article you just mentioned, at the end of spring semester, the Provost had a sort of public forum with students, which I attended, and someone asked about the use of money from increased tution. if i remember correctly, the provost said that in the past, due to budget cuts, the money for the Tuition Differential Program had to be diverted to other uses instead of new faculty, I think he mentioned like a building that had already been started or something like that. yet, the provost still went on to promise that money from the new tuition raises would be spent on faculty. while I don’t have an article to back myself up, I think this shows that the university can use their money anyway they want, no matter what they promise. for now they say some of this increase will be used to improve undergraduate education, but there is no guarantee that will actually happen.</p>