<p>In response to a comment above, UVa has committed to continue to fund 100% of need for in-state and out of state US students through the next academic year. If you ask the President and the Staff, they would like to continue that commitment indefinitely. </p>
<p>The soon-to-be demoted Rector (Board Chairwoman) and a couple of her now-resigned co-conspirators were pushing to cut aid to out of state students. They hired a consulting firm to do a study last year on financial aid. That consulting firm recommended a couple adjustments to save money, but concluded that the quality of the OOS student enrollment would drastically fall if everyone had to pay the list price of $39K to $44K a year for tuition. </p>
<p>UVa openly admits that they charge OOS students much more than it costs to educate them. Therefore, a portion of that financial aid is not actually an increased cost to the U. but instead is a reduced profit margin. Also, some people like to merge actual UVa financial aid with other financial aid sources (including state grants to students) to make it look like the U. is spending more on financial aid than it really is. </p>
<p>When they tried to fire the President (which lasted 2 weeks before a tsunami hit the board), the Rector tried to claim that the President had not completed a strategic plan. The President responded that when she was hired, she was specifically directed by the Board to not prepare a plan because so much of the staff were disappointed that they had put so much effort into the previous plan, but it was not implemented. The President had also prepared a document that read like a Strategic Plan and had given it to the Rector, but she had not let most of the Board see it.</p>
<p>Therefore, some of these consultant studies are coming out of that line of argument. </p>
<p>The financial aid study concluded (of course) that more study was needed. As a result, a set of consultants have been brought in as moderators for discussion and to conduct this latest study.</p>