@dtrain1027 No, that the state should have a say in whether or not the school should give free tuition to these students whose families make under $65k rather than have a select few members of the school make such a large decision.
^exactly my point.
OK, but the regents are elected in a statewide election, for a term of office, just like state legislators. Michigan voters “have a say” because they elect the regents. The Board of Regents has been making the “large decisions” for 200 years. The regents set tuition and approve budgets, including the financial aid budget. The regents are subject to the democratic electoral process, so if this decision is against the will of Michigan voters, they will be voted out. Leaving the political process question aside, again, remember that almost all students at UM with family incomes below $65K already get the equivalent of free tuition through institutional financial aid, Pell grants, etc. The reality is the impact of the new tuition program on state taxpayers will be minimal.
It would be shameful for the state government to have any control of the private raised endowment money. It is the same pot of money, but they have no contribution to it and would not have any control on it. Where does it say the state government have control on the whole financial control of the university? It is not on the Constitution. Period. It is like my daughter gives me $500 for her food cost and she wants to determine where I should go for vacation with my own money. They are in the same pot too. LOL.
Here is the bylaws of the Regent. There is not a single line about state government control on the finance of the university.
http://regents.umich.edu/bylaws/
Perhaps you don’t know. A family with $70k income has been receiving ~$17k in gift aids already according to their financial aid examples before this annoucnement. For the ~3000 students with family income under $65k, the new program would cost in the order of 1 million only. Not to mention some of those ~3000 students are already covered by HAIL already.
Also, for the >$25k difference in OOS and in-state tuition, the state appropriation is far from covering the bill. Indeed, the percentage of state appropriation in revenue of the University these days is only 1/4 of it was in the 1970s. The university has been raising endowment to cover the gap left by the reduction in state fund (now only ~$300M per year). Lastly, tax breaks for vast majority of education institutes, private or public.
https://www.aau.edu/key-issues/tax-exempt-status-universities
Will this take away from the pool of resources already in the university, or is there more money coming in to pay for this?
I feel really good about this even though I already graduated in 2015. My family had a household income of $25k. You think I liked that? Neither of my parents went to college.
If you’re a kid born into a situation like mine, then everybody just says “tough luck, get over it.” Meanwhile I just put up with the necessity to do things differently than most “children” at uofm. I took extra loans out, ate ramen/mac&cheese/rice&beans everyday, and worked 34 hours per week (including weekends) on top of 16 credits per semester, always lived in a double bedroom, and did other things to save and make money. So yeah, I missed out on a lot of the college “experience”. You don’t think I was hard working? My parents didn’t pay the price for my education, I did.
For all those against this. Guess what? its your turn and I get to say “tough luck, get over it”. Meanwhile, the rest of you swipe your mommy and daddy’s credit card all day to buy Pizza House, Qdoba, and $6 Starbucks coffee to nurse your hangover. They pay for your Landmark apartment and on top of that give you an allowance every month.
The point is to take the financial burden away from the student.
“Will this take away from the pool of resources already in the university, or is there more money coming in to pay for this?”
Michigan’s latest fund raising campaign, which raised $4 billion, was intended primarily to boost its financial aid capacity. The money donated was earmarked for this purpose.
From the radio interview yesterday, 20% of the total endowment is designated by donor for providing financial aids.
@betoh I admire those of lesser means that pull themselves up by their bootstraps to get their education and give themselves better opportunities than where they came from.
But I sure hope you don’t consider all students that come from upper middle class backgrounds to be ones that ride along easy street and get guided through school on the wings of tudors, lattes and limitless ATM withdrawals.
I know students of every socio-economic class that bust their butts to earn great grades, work or volunteer many, many hours and mange themselves along the way. Please don’t generalize nor live with spite of some of your fellow students; most of whom are disiplined and work hard.
BTW - I’m most suppportive of this initiative to help fund the education of lower income students.
I do hope though that the University does not continue to raise tuition of OOS students to what is becoming unreasonable levels. Yes, they will still fill the classes, easily in fact. But, eventually it won’t be with the very best students.
“I do hope though that the University does not continue to raise tuition of OOS students to what is becoming unreasonable levels. Yes, they will still fill the classes, easily in fact. But, eventually it won’t be with the very best students.”
When it comes to cost of attendance for OOS students, Michigan is still cheaper than most of its peers. Below is a list of Michigan’s peers and their cost of attendance. As you can see, Michigan has room to grow! 
University of Pennsylvania $54,000 tuition, $16,000 room and board, $70,000 total
Duke University $53,500 tuition, $15,500 room and board, $69,000 total
Northwestern University $53,000 tuition, $16,000 room and board, $69,000 total
University of Chicago $54,500 tuition, $15,500 room and board, $69,000 total
University of Southern California $54,000 tuition, $15,000 room and board, $69,000 total
Brown University $54,500 tuition, $14,000 room and board, $68,500 total
Boston College $53,000 tuition, $15,000 room and board, $68,000 total
Dartmouth College $53,000 tuition, $15,000 room and board, $68,000 total
Georgetown University $52,500 tuition, $15,500 room and board, $68,000 total
New York University $50,500 tuition, $17,500 room and board, $68,000
Washington University $51,500 tuition, $16,000 room and board, $67,500 total
Carnegie Mellon University $53,000, $14,000, $67,000 total
Cornell University $53,000 tuition, $14,000 room and board, $67,000 total
Tufts University $53,000 tuition, $14,000 room and board, $67,000 tuition
University of Notre Dame $51,500 tuition, $15,000 room and board, $66,500
Emory University $49,500 tuition, $14,000 room and board, $63,500 total
Vanderbilt University $47,500 tuition, $15,500 room and board, $63,000 total
University of Michigan-Ann Arbor $48,500 tuition (average between lower and upper division), $11,000 room and board, $59,500 total
University of Virginia $48,000 tuition, $11,000 room and board, $59,000 total
University of California-Berkeley $42,000 tuition, $16,000 room and board, $58,000 total
University of California-Los Angeles $41,000 tuition, $15,500 room and board, $56,500 total
University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill $34,500 tuition, $11,500 room and board, $46,000 total
That being said, Michigan should improve FA for OOS students.
If the funds for subsidizing tuition come from private sources such that the state has no legitimate interest in them, why limit the aid to in-state students? Presumably, much of the money in an endowment comes from out of state sources as well.
And if free is good, why not make everything free? Why limit the aid to tuition? Include housing and perhaps a “livable wage” on top of it? I jest of course but such is the thinking recently.
From a quick internet search, the size of the UM endowment is ~$10.5 billion. The enrollment is 44,719. Even if you used the entire endowment to subsidize tuition, you could afford about $9,400 per student assuming a 4% draw.
So clearly, they do not have enough money to make anything free. They are relying on full, or at least fuller, pay students to pay the bills and then shunting what money they have to lower income students. To make the experience free for every student they would need an endowment about 6 times larger devoted fully to tuition reduction.
Given that their money is not growing on trees, I wonder if their admission are need aware. How else could they budget free tuition without regulating the number of needy admissions?
For comparison, imagine if this were done in healthcare? For example, imagine that a healthcare institution decided to charge people different rates based on their income. The same hospital accepts Medicare and Medicaid as virtually all do. That would be a crime, literally.
WISdad, the University is currently extending free tuition, not room and board, exclusively to in-state resident undergraduate students with household incomes under $75k per year. In other words, nowhere near 45,000 students. Without being need aware, like most universities in its peer group, roughly 20%-25% of Michigan undergraduate students come from families with incomes under $75k per year. If you wish to do the math, Michigan has 17,000 in-state undergraduate students. Of those, 25% (4,000) come from families with incomes under $75k/year. Tuition for in-state students is $15,000/year. The total value of free tuition for those 4,000 students is roughly $60 million/year. This is clearly well within Michigan’s annual financial aid budget.
There is no need to accuse the University of committing a crime.
@WISdad23 The whole idea of this is to increase the diversity of student body. As Affirmative Act has been banned in admission process, they have been exploring other ways to attract under privilege students. The HAIL program and now this free tuition purpose is their answer to it. Making the admission process need aware would simply defeat the purpose. You are right that money is not growing on trees, they have to limit the resources to those who need it. Offering free tuition to all students is not practical. Also, the total number of undergraduate enrollment is below 30k. I don’t see the reason to include grad students in the calculation.
I did not accuse UM of committing a crime. I merely pointed out that if they were in the business of healthcare the practice would be a crime.
I don’t know that UM is trying to “increase diversity.” They are trying to reduce tuition for those who they determine cannot pay market rates. They are using money from donors to the endowment to that end. My points were merely rhetorical. If, as pointed out above, the cost is well within the means, why not do more? Why limit it to in state students? Why limit the subsidy to tuition? If “20-25% of students come from families with income under $75K” why not expand that to 100% or at least 50%?
As to “well within the annual financial aid budget”… the argument is that the money comes from the endowment, not the university itself. So they can determine their own budget. The endowment could afford much more than $60 million per year for tuition subsidies if it chose to do so. For those who are expert at spending the money of others, what limits should the endowment impose on itself? Certainly they could pay for every students’ tuition and other expenses for years.
Umich gives free tuition to in state students because its a public university also they have to stay and work in Michigan to improve the economy to get the free tuition. Also, it is not realistic for a public university to give free tuition to everyone since it also uses its endowment for other things. Umich meets full need for in state students. Umich is trying to increase its socioeconomic diversity since its the richest public university in america @WISdad23
@WISdad23 It has been on the media for the purpose of this is to increase social diversity of students. Also, the endowments include donations earmarked for specific purposes. 20% of the total is for providing financial aid. Last, they are not using the whole endowment amount but the estimated income generated from it so it will sustain. It does not make any sense in dividing the total endowment amount by the total number of current students to calculate how much they can spend. The endowment per capita is just an index for comparison among schools. It is not the way how they will use the money.
By the way, you are suggesting Affordable Care Act is a crime. Also, hospitals do charge people differently depending on their health plans.
“If, as pointed out above, the cost is well within the means, why not do more?”
Michigan is doing more. Not all FA packages cover 100% of tuition. Most will cover partial tuition, depending on the student’s financial needs.
“Why limit it to in state students?”
Because it is a public university and first serves residents of the state. Eventually, when its FA resources are sufficient, I hope that the University will extend this policy to OOS students.
“Why limit the subsidy to tuition?”
Because most financial aid packages are designed to cover tuition, not cost of living.
“If “20-25% of students come from families with income under $75K” why not expand that to 100% or at least 50%?”
The 20-25% mark is not artificially set by the university. Most universities admit students without knowing their financial background. It just happens that 20-25% come from families with income under $75,000, just as Michigan’s admissions yield always hovers between 39% and 44%.
@billcsho
“The whole idea of this is to increase the diversity of student body. As Affirmative Act has been banned in admission process, they have been exploring other ways to attract under privilege students. The HAIL program and now this free tuition purpose is their answer to it.”
Great that you would mention this. Another example of the complete lack of regard of the wishes of the state that provides, and making a complete mockery of our nation’s highest judicial institution that esteemed justices such as Antonin Scalia have served, all the while landing on the wrong side of history with their discriminatory agenda. They have the audacity to admit that they are doing all these wrong things (among other things such as the use of highly correlated factors) to circumvent the spirit or the ruling and the legislature’s will. This is typical of the radical wing that runs the university though, and I guess prevalent in academia (see UT Austin as well with their 10% rule)
P.S This is not to spark a debate of the de-merits of affirmative action - that would be against forum policy and a complete waste of time. Just that @billcsho have brought up the topic being related to this and it was another good example of the overreaching administration circumventing the will of a state that have spoken their wills repeatedly in the past decade to selfishily push their radical agenda.