<p>I did some search engine research about UVA's budget and found some articles about cuts, but most were from 2008 or 2009. What sort of effect did these budget cuts have on UVA? Were they offset through tuition raises or other fundraising efforts? How is UVA's funding in general? Are the faculty well paid and the facilties in good shape, etc.?</p>
<p>The articles I found were mostly about impending budget cuts, but I could not find much after the fact reporting.</p>
<p>We were cutting back for years because this downturn was not a total surprise. In the last year, I think students started to notice the cuts. Prior to that, the cuts were done in ways that students wouldn’t notice.</p>
<p>Every school should be cutting their budgets, even though many got stimulus money in the last year.</p>
<p>I would add that in exchange for less state money UVa and other state U’s in Virginia were given substantial freedom to manage the funds they have–more than most state U’s around the US. At this point while important, state funds are only a relatively small (10% or so) portion of the educational budget (excluding UVa Hospital operations) at UVa. UVa has a very easy to read budget document. I’d expect around a 5% cut for 2011 in state $$$ but that’s really not much in the overall budget these days. </p>
<p>In my experience (teaching here since 1988) UVA has always been pretty lean and efficient compared to the wealthy Ivy where I used to teach. State funding has been falling since the early 1990s, and the University has slowly ramped up its private fundraising and ramped down its spending. In some ways that has made the recession easier for us, because faculty and department administrators are used to being careful with money. When we bring visiting speakers, we often combine forces with other departments or research areas to choose somebody who will have maximum impact, and there are strict limits to how much we can spend on hospitality: I generally have students, faculty, and the speaker to a potluck at my home, which seems nicer anyhow than blowing a lot of money on a fancy restaurant. Our department holiday party is a potluck lunch that costs UVA nothing, more fun and intimate than the big evening catered deal with lots of booze that I had to endure in my first job . . . There’s a lot of emphasis on using teaching space maximally, which sometimes means cajoling faculty to teach evening classes or on Fridays (gasp!). There’s also been a big effort to move all sorts of course materials online so that departments don’t have to spend money on xeroxes, paper, etc. None of us have had raises since 2007, and when faculty have left, they typically haven’t been replaced. But actually not that many people have departed, because so many universities (like UVA) have hiring freezes right now and some faculty members delayed retirement when they saw what the drop in the stock market had done to their savings.</p>
<p>On the bright side, the University has done everything it can to protect the teaching experience–not letting classes get way bigger, for instance–and also to protect its staff. One way many universities have been coping is to fire a lot of the support staff, which can create administrative havoc and, given that UVA is Charlottesville’s largest employer by far, would have dramatically deepened the recession here. There’s also been a ton of new construction going up–the South Lawn project, a big new education building, a band building, and a new drama building. Building and grounds maintenance has been cut slightly–our building has fewer custodial staff than it used to–but things still look pretty good around here!</p>
<p>It’s hard to know what the future will bring. I think many of us involved in department-level administration have been hoping that we can hunker down for a few years, and the recession will eventually go away. If it doesn’t, or if it gets worse and more severe spending cuts are required, I think the budget savings will have to come from structural changes above the department level.</p>
<p>Thanks for the responses. That was a lot of good information.</p>
<p>I’ll be at UVA next year for law school, but my current undergrad has been fiscally irresponsible for years, and now with larger and larger cuts (and a governor who refused stimulus funds), things are not ideal. Construction is being halted halfway, programs are being cut, etc. From your descriptions, it seems UVA had the foresight to lower the magnitude of cutbacks. That is promising.</p>
<p>I have posted a lot about this in the past,
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I don’t know the dates on those, but as of last spring there was still a hiring freeze, and trouble hiring enough TAs for the class I work for. It is better this semester as far as this fall goes, but I’m also not living on grounds anymore, so I can’t comment on the long lines in the dining hall, overcrowded buses, etc that used to be daily life for me. I do know the class, which is normally 25-50 people under 500, is at 525+ for enrollment this spring. So I’m not really sure how much better things are getting…</p>
<p>UVa law is completely self-funding and has not received any state money for a number of years. It was among the first state U functions to go independent and charge market tuition. They give instate students a small discount on tuition.</p>