President Machen says student-fee proposal doomed

Colleges and Universities A-Z University of Florida
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<p>In the wake of Gov. Charlie Crist’s budget proposal that calls for no tuition increases in higher education, University of Florida President Bernie Machen conceded here Monday that his plan to raise the cost of attending UF is probably already dead in the water. </p>

<p>Machen unveiled an “academic enhancement program” months ago, calling for future UF students to pay an additional $1,000 a year to attend the university. If UF hopes to compete with the top-10 public universities in the nation, as Machen and university trustees have proposed, then the university will have to bring in more revenue from students, Machen has argued. </p>

<p>“The reality of it is that we’re not likely to get the academic enhancement program this year,” Machen told trustees at their retreat here. </p>

<p>Machen has called the program his No. 1 priority this legislative session, and his comments Monday suggest a defeat for that priority before the session even began.
Careful to not couch the fee as a “tuition increase,” Machen’s “program” still caught early criticism from those who suggested a tuition hike by any other name was still a tuition hike. The decision by Crist, the state's newly elected Republican governor, to keep tuition hikes out of his budget appears the last straw. </p>

<p>“Politics is the art of the possible," Machen said, "and we thought $1,000 was possible.”</p>

<p>For more on this story, read Tuesday's Gainesville Sun. </p>

<p><a href="http://gatorsports.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20070212/LOCAL/70212030%5B/url%5D"&gt;http://gatorsports.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20070212/LOCAL/70212030&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p>

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<p>Damn, this was actually something i supported</p>

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<p>Blame it on the State University System & Old Florida backwoods policies. Hopefully it will be getting reformed very shortly.</p>

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<p>People don't wanna pay $1000 for a vast improvement of an already incredible education? It's why there are those who decide they wanna pay $30,000...for that inch over public schools in education</p>

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<p>Actually, I support the program in theory. My issue is what will ACTUALLY happen to the money after it is collected. I forsee waste, squanderance, needless departmnts being set up, general tax payer raping. Heck, already some of the money was to be earmarked for more "academic advisors". ***K? A school where the average SAT is approaching a 1320 and students can't figure out how to determie graduation requirements??? Justification for an increase in tuition? NO WAY! If my kid is too lazy to figure out how to graduate school in 4 years (when it is designed to be completed in 4years), I wouldn't want other parents to pay a "FEE" to compensate for that. In my opinipon, there wasn't enough talk about oversight and accountability for this program to go into affect. Blindly trusting the government with our money is always a mistake and I say congrats to those who saw the potential for abuse and killed this thing.</p>

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<p>tomslawsky, I know you are a MBA student and probably did not have any undergraduate experience with advising at Florida, but if you are a student in the LA&S, getting advising help is frustrating to say the least. I have had good experience with advising because I am in engineering and we have our own advisers, but I feel bad for my friends who have to wait for ** hours ** to get a little advice. </p>

<p>A school of Florida's size and resources should not have their students wait 3 hours just to get a hold off their record. You probably don't think it's important, but stuff like student support and happiness is a big part of the rankings and reputation of a university. </p>

<p>I also think you are a little off base by saying that students do not know what they need to graduate. Students do not go to an adviser to ask what courses they need to graduate, but what is the best way to approach them in terms of difficulty, professors, learning resources, etc. Advising is not only about coursework, but it also has a lot to do with networking in order to have success post graduation. </p>

<p>For example, a premed student needs an adviser to help him or her find research/community involvement for their medical applications. Without such guidance to find these opportunities, students would have a slim chance of getting into a medical school regardless of GPA and MCAT scores. </p>

<p>That 1000 dollar fee can go a long way in improving student undergraduate experience in terms of better student to professor ratio, advising and personal resources, and a stronger program so that their degrees can be worth more when they graduate.</p>

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<p>I also support it. The extra $1000 fee is highly needed. There are many improvements that could of been made from the extra money obtain from the fee. Including paying the good professors more so they would want to stay here, saving the liberal arts collage, offering more class within certain depts (esp. I couldnt take a class this semester because they only have 2 periods of it and 15 people each and that class is one that I need to graduate), paying grads students more (UF currently pays them crap compared to other universities), etc.</p>

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<p>Suppose a Florida politician said:</p>

<p>“I propose a law saying that no Florida state university should ever rank in the top 10 nationally in the sports of football or basketball.”</p>

<p>I suspect we would be talking impeachment, or recall, or riots.</p>

<p>Well, it shows an awful lot about our values that Florida politicians of all stripes were able to say pretty much exactly that the other day about academics.</p>

<p>See, Florida is the cheapest of the cheap when it comes to state universities — low tax support, compared with most states, but also tuition among the nation’s lowest.</p>

<p>Without question, that’s a cheap deal for taxpayers, and a cheap deal for families trying to pay for college.</p>

<p>But in the long term, it puts Florida’s schools in a bind.</p>

<p>That’s why the University of Florida, in a burst of desperation, came up with the idea of charging an extra fee of $500 a semester. The money would be used to hire more professors and staff, toward the Gators’ goal of becoming a top-10 state university.</p>

<p>But when the idea came up at a meeting in Tallahassee the other day, Florida’s politicians of all ranks and parties, from Gov. Charlie Crist on down, stomped all over it.</p>

<p>The nerve of those Gators! Never mind that at $3,200 a year, Florida already ranks at rock bottom among 74 state universities that might be considered “flagship’’ schools.</p>

<p>Never mind, also, that the fee would not apply to students with need-based financial aid, nor would it be charged against Florida’s “Bright Futures’’ scholarship program.</p>

<p>Here was an interesting quote from state Sen. Jim King, R-Jacksonville:</p>

<p>”I’m not so sure that in a state that has 11 universities, I want to say, 'Gosh you’re the flagship, so you deserve to charge more because you’re better.’ I don’t buy into that.”</p>

<p>Now me, I am willing to say exactly that, but that’s probably just one more reason I am not a state senator.</p>

<p>The big picture here is that Florida lags far behind the curve in developing a strong state university system. </p>

<p>Last month, a consultant hired by the state Board of Governors set a pretty good stage for what Florida needs to be talking about.</p>

<p>We need stronger vision at the state level, instead of parceling out law schools and med schools and other programs willy-nilly, depending on who has the best backers in the Legislature.</p>

<p>We need to create a “middle tier’’ of state schools that can meet the demand for four-year college degrees, without stuffing everybody into a few mega-campuses.</p>

<p>We need to figure out how to give Florida’s state universities the financial support they ought to have, without being either wasteful with tax dollars, or heartless with tuition.</p>

<p>One of our problems is that we have locked ourselves into cheapness — we have promised both the Bright Futures scholarship and a prepaid tuition program. Any change would cost those programs a bundle, but breaking the deal is politically unthinkable.</p>

<p>Yet the one thing we ought not do is what Florida has always done — drift along, school against school, the Legislature meddling here and there, backing into the future.</p>

<p>Yes, our insurance crisis is a mess, and folks are mad about property taxes — but higher education, more than any other issue, cries out for the leadership of Florida’s new governor, and it gives him the chance to achieve greatness.</p>

<p><a href="http://www.sptimes.com/2007/02/12/State/State_has_paid_price_.shtml%5B/url%5D"&gt;http://www.sptimes.com/2007/02/12/State/State_has_paid_price_.shtml&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p>

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<p>it would seem to me that uf has an alternate opportunity of pulling in additional revenue. Based upon the published statistics currently showing that only 6% of those attending are from out of state, it would seem like a no brainer to start accepting more out of state students. president machen has little control over the political motivations of the legislature, however he has far greater control over the schools admissions process. </p>

<p>(these are just rough, not well thought out numbers)</p>

<p>of the 7,000 or so students who attend uf each year, approximately 6% are from oos (420). If president machen decided to try and increase the % of oos students to say 20% (1,400 students. that would still leave 80% for in state), the university would see a windfall of about $15,000,000 to $20,000,000 each year.</p>

<p>there is no mandate i am aware of that requires uf to accept a certain percentage of in state vs. oos students. in fact, i believe this has already started. I think you will see that the % of oos students will increase with the class of 2011 and beyond. most other large state schools president machen is trying to compete with (michigan (34% oos), North Carolina(15% oos), Virginia(33% oos), wisconsin(39% oos), illinois (11% oos) etc) all accept a much higher % of oos students than uf. </p>

<p>i know its not what florida residents and students want to hear, but it only seems logical that this is going to occur, if it already hasn't started.</p>

<p>if i were president machen, i would direct my admissions department to start recruiting oos students more aggresively and accept a much higher percentage of oos especially during the early decision period when you are not competing with other schools and would not have to offer as much financial assistance to oos students.</p>

<p>this is the way to go, for uf to get to where it wants to be.</p>

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<p>I agree 100%!</p>

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<p>I thought it was a great idea. I knew ahead of time it would face opposition. It apparently is a common misconception that UF does not want out of state students I just don’t think oos students have wanted to come here until recently. If the extra money would go to help out the school in any way why not it is the cheapest flagship school in the nation. While people in Florida do have the right to get an education at a lower price at some point this hinders others students from getting an exceptional education without having to pay an out of state price.</p>

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<p>bizzygator</p>

<p>i don't think that that uf doesn't want oos stidents. i just think its a good opportunity for them to pull in the revenue stream like they were hoping to get from the $1,000 tuition increase.</p>

<p>in my opinion, they need to start spending more time recruiting oos students, rather than in state (who are going to apply anyway and are already familiar with the university)</p>

<p>for a university the size of UF to have only 6% oos, is very low and should be viewed as an opportinity for the university to bring in more $$$.</p>

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<p>Well there is an answer to that as well it is like football recruiting Florida is a good state in football talent so one of the main ideas for the top three football schools in the state UF, FSU, and UM is to keep the players in state.
Like wise Florida is a big state in population. The reason they recruit so heavily in state now is not because they want people to apply to Florida it is because they want the best students in the state to apply. Allow me to explicate my idea. Both UNC and Michigan are so great partly because of their in state recruits. Hypothetically speaking Florida being a larger state, the university should be able to duplicate if not surpass that type of in-state recruiting. In the past top students in the state would apply to ivy, sub ivy schools, or out of state publics. These students would need safety schools and would choose their local Florida state school (no pun intended) and end up not applying to Florida. I choose Florida as my safety because I wasn’t going to FIU. After many schools chose not to give an adequate amount of scholarships from my perspective I decided on UF. But let us say I lived near FSU, UCF, or USF I may have chosen one of them as my safety instead and not come to UF. UF wants to make sure that all top students in the state know about UF and apply and maybe apply to UF as their top school in their local universities as a safety. It is a great idea to attract good students because there is Bright Futures and that insures that the best students will get tuition paid and that is even more of an incentive for them to come to UF. That makes the schools SAT’s and G.P.A # jump and that is the goal.</p>

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<p>good points bizzygator</p>

<p>i think we are talking about two different things. i have no doubt that the students going to UF who are from florida are the smartest kids in the state if not the country.</p>

<p>i think that's terrific, but it doesn;t bring in more money, which is what president machen went to the legislature to ask for and is what president machen thinks will get UF into the top 10. getting smart kids to attend is certainly one piece of the puzzle, but its not enough according to oresident machen. more money is what is now needed, so workong harder to attract smart oos students seem to be one option to achieve this goal.</p>

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<p>Isn't there a certain percentage of Florida residents that UF must accept? It's possible that they can only accept maybe 1% more OOS applicants, which is not a huge pull.</p>

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<p>i don't think so, i have asked the admission department that question and the answer was no. the admissions rep i spoke with simply said, UF would love to have more oos students, but they just don't apply.</p>

<p>could be that wasn't true, in which case your point would be valid, but i suspect that just isn't the case. i'm not a lawyer, but it would seem strange that a public institution would be able to limit a certain segment of the population, but who knows! i could understand charging less for the services to in state (as they do), but limiting it to a certain percentage?</p>

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<p>Looks like the Non refundable housing deposit will now approach $1000.</p>

<p>The trouble with UF is it doesn't represent the true caracteristics and cross section of the state. It's unreachable by the vast majority of the kids unless you have some special athletic or other talent. An average to slightly above average kid has no chance, it's grown now that it is only for the elite. getting more money to compete with other top schools and make it even more unreachable to the masses doesn't really resonate with me, I'm glad it isn't going to happen. Building more dorms and classrooms so that more kids could be accepted across a wider range and distribution of GPA and test scores seems like a more desirable approach and one that could garner wider support.</p>

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<p>even fsu has 18% oos.</p>