Virginia colleges seek break from state control

Parents Forum
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<p>When UVA made the decision to try and compete nationally in the major sports, their only option is to take less qualified "students." Players are sent to Fork Union to get grades up, it's unfortunately the reality with big time college sports.</p>

<p>Now, back to the Charter</p>

<p>Since 1980, the proportion of William and Mary's total budget funded by the state has slipped from 42 to 18 percent this year.</p>

<p>William and Mary now ranks 6th among national public universities (31 overall) in terms of quality, but <b>124th in terms of financial resources.</b>
^This stat is mind blowing to me. I don't know where UVA ranks, but imagine what W&M could do if its financial resources were in the top 50.</p>

<p>Although the state has set a goal of making the average faculty salary at Virginia institutions meet the 60th percentile of the average salary of their peer universities, the state has not met that goal for the past 15 years.</p>

<p>Enhanced revenues will enable William and Mary to offer competitive salaries and wages to its dedicated employees. For a three-year period, the College was unable to provide general salary increases. <b>The average faculty salary now stands at only the 23rd percentile of the average faculty salary of its peer institutions</b>, and staff members have been similarly disadvantaged. </p>

<p>there is strong support for the Charter initiative on campus at W&M. A survey was done by the Student Council President, which I responded to, and was therefore sent the answers, and I would say that 90%+ of the students responded that they would be willing to pay more to keep W&M at the same quality or higher quality.</p>

<p>(not to mention we proudly graduated 100% of our football team in the most recent data (class that entered in 1998), only other school in D1 was Duke.)</p>

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<p>I think this is a terrible idea. It looks to me like just another attempt to mask a power grab that the Virginia college administrators have been trying to finagle for years.</p>

<p>Look, no one is a bigger believer in deregulation than me. A government entity is by definition an egregiously inefficient money-waster. But the worst combination is a government entity that has no accountability, and that is basically what this charter initiative is designed to accomplish.</p>

<p>It would be an intriguing idea to privatize some or all of Virginia's colleges. The first thing they would have to do is buy their property or, more likely, pay a market rent for it. I would love to see how the appraisal comes in on the Wren Building at W&M and the Rotunda at UVA. But UVa is run nothing like a business. It sets up private foundations which amass enormous amounts of money, most of which are devoted to capital projects. Some are necessary to attract and hold good faculty--the expansion and renovation of a number of science buildings and a new arts facility. But many are frivolous vanities that would never be funded by the State--the new basketball arena comes to mind (good grief, we lost to Miami at HOME last night; they're going to have 13,000 seats to fill with that! Sorry, I digress).</p>

<p>When UVa cleans up its own priorities, then maybe it can preach to the General Assembly about how it budgets for higher education. Maybe the UVa administration could sacrifice a couple of skyboxes and divert the money to faculty or staff salaries.</p>

<p>If you want to increase faculty salaries, a noble goal, then (a) raise private money for it, or (b) vote in some sympathetic Assembly members. If you don't like the way the General Assembly funds higher education, a new election is always less than 2 years away. If you think the state procurement law is a nightmare, then legislate an exemption to it. If they want to hire their own lawyers rather than have them appointed by the state Attorney General, then legislate an exemption to that. They've already done that sort of thing with hospital. </p>

<p>None of the justifications offered for charter status presents any reason for giving the schools unfettered power to set tuition. As an alum, local and Virginia taxpayer, I know we have a ridiculously sweet deal in this state, and that UVa and W&M are priced incredibly under market for in-state kids. Maybe tuition should go up. Maybe the general funds of the Commonwealth devoted to the schools should be increased. Fine, I know who to go to ask for that to be done. But if a "chartered" UVa decides that everyone should pay Duke's tuition rate so that they can pay some animal rights ethicist or the women's fencing coach or the "alternative medicine" practitioners the same thing they have to pay the football coach (well, that's only fair, isn't it?), to whom do I complain? The Board Visitors? Puh-leeze.</p>

<p>These are PUBLIC schools owned and operated by and for the benefit of the taxpaying public. That means they always will, and always should, have to answer to, beg from and plead with the representatives of the taxpaying public. Sorry about the ranting tone, but I think sometimes in reading the lame justifications they bring up for this scheme that they think we are all just stupid outside the walls of the academy.</p>

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<p>vadad,</p>

<p>I disagree it should be the job of the schools to have to raise private funds to keep professors at their school. As a state funded institution, the state should be providing its employees with a competitive salary, so all of the professors don't back their bags for the Northeast.</p>

<p>18% seems like a very low portion of operating money that W&M gets from the state. Does anyone have statistics on what percentage of money Michigan and the UCs get from the state?</p>

<p>If that state keeps giving us less and less money, we have to find another way to get it.</p>

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<p>Michigan is about 28% or 29% this year, if I recall correctly. We're currently getting support (dollarwise) that we got in 1997. Without inflation taken into account.</p>

<p>It's a much lower number if you count the hospital and other auxiliary units (less then 10%).</p>

<p>Once again I think it obfuscates the issue to look at athletic spending. Whatever you think it means about a college's moral priorities, from a budget standpoint you need to know how they handle the athletic spending. People often gripe about how money has been "diverted from the academic enterprise" to build skyboxes or athletic facilities. That is only true IF the school uses General Fund dollars to build them. Do they? At Michigan, that's not the case. So while some people may not like money going to a new locker room, they cannot credibly say that it's why Michigan tuition is up or that it's the reason Michigan faculty are leaving. Those dollars cannot be and would not have been spent on faculty salaries or students anyway.</p>

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<p>For a major school with good football attendance the athletic spending is a red herring argument, similar to those complaining about the Bush inaugural spending in light of the tsunami. Many athletic fans also donate to the general university fund and some don't. It is not logicall to presume the funds that go th support athletics would automatically go to the other funds for the U. </p>

<p>As to funding of other state schools, at Wisconsin the funding is back to late 90's levels in nominal dollars and about 19% of total spending. UW does not have the hospital in the budget but if you take out research which is externally funded, the percentage goes to 31% from the state.</p>

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<p>Private contributions are used all the time to support faculty and academic endeavors. Every professorial chair I've ever heard of is endowed by private contributions. My Trout Unlimited Chapter makes a contribution every year that goes to a fund that gives money to worthy graduate student in environmental sciences to pursue his studies at UVa. Research is funded by private businesses and government agencies in the form of grants. All of this is entirely appropriate. I may be cynical, but I think that the claim of reliance on state funds for faculty and staff salaries is little more than an effort to have a needy constituency to lobby the legislature. </p>

<p>And hoedown is absolutely correct about capital spending on sports facilities, and I should not have used the "diverted" argument to make my point. My point is that it seems to me that the solicitation of private contributions to all capital projects of any kind seems to occupy far more of the efforts of school administration than solicitation for faculty and student academic endeavors. You can't divert a skybox, but you can make the annual "Campaign for X University" something more than an effort to make improvements in the physical plant. </p>

<p>It is precisely because these are public universities that they should be accountable to the electorate. If the General Assembly underfunds them, then the solution is to persuade the General Assembly to give them more money, not to make them autonomous.</p>

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<p>I believe most of the new 3 Billion dollar campaign is for programs/endowments, not buildings.</p>

<p>More on the charter debate</p>

<p><a href="http://www.dailyprogress.com/servlet/Satellite?pagename=CDP/HTMLPage/CDP_HTMLPage&c=HTMLPage&cid=1031780118195%5B/url%5D"&gt;http://www.dailyprogress.com/servlet/Satellite?pagename=CDP/HTMLPage/CDP_HTMLPage&c=HTMLPage&cid=1031780118195&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p>

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<p>I think that is great if it works out, barrons. Then they should have no trouble at all making up the $39 million they say they would need to replace general funding under the charter proposal, and no need for the 8-10% tuition increases the proponents are planning on. In fact, that should cushion of any of the "wild fluctuations" in state funding that they are talking about, and obviate the need for them to have autonomy over tuitions.</p>

<p>My impression is that UVa and VaTech really aren't the institutions that are hurting all that much right now. W&M has lost some prominent faculty members in the last couple of years, and with a smaller school like that, such departures, I am sure, have a big impact. That should be investigated. If it was poverty that caused the school to be outbid for the profs, and that results in a detriment to the quality of the education currently being received at this extraordinary school, then the General Assembly should address that immediately. If these were career moves to more prominent platforms for their particular scholarship, well, those are the breaks, and the search committee will find some capable replacements.</p>

<p>My point, which I seem to muddling with unnecessary digressions, is that none of the justifications offered for the proposal leads to the conclusion that the schools should set their own tuition rates.</p>

<p>Last year was an interesting year and a great example. The Virginia state schools were very late with their financial aid packages to incoming students, using the justification that the state budget had not been approved, and that troglodyte Republicans were cruelly withholding tax increases to fully fund the state's obligations. (The tax raisers won, and 6 months later, we were reading about debates concerning how they would spend the surplus the tax increases created. No talk about reducing the unnecessary tax increases, of course.) All of this was a great inconvenience to parents and students and university administrators, I'm sure. But it was a choice made by people accountable to the public in the next election. Under charter, I presume that the schools would not have to deal with this unpredictablity, and just make an estimate and raise the tuition if there was a shortfall. What happens to the surplus if there is an over-estimate? It's not coming back to the taxpayers. Who's to blame if there is a shortfall? A Board of Visitors that the Governor can't even replace. And all the while, as former Gov. Gilmore (a loyal UVa grad who bleeds orange and blue) points out in the newspaper articles you linked, the university administration is not paying a dime for the use of the taxpayers' property.</p>

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<p>The issue of who owns the buildings is tough--BTW I am on the fence on this entire idea. I suppose my choice would be similar to what Michigan has which is a high degree of independence while under overall state control. My school is also chafing under declining state funding with seemingly ever more strings and regulations attached. They are watching Virginia closely but would love to have what UM has in freedom.</p>

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<p>Vadad,</p>

<p>Yes, W&M is hurting because of budget cuts, as are VT, UVA and all of the other public colleges and universities in Virginia. I think you are right in that the Charter initiative would significantly boost W&M's level of competitveness amongst our private peers as determined by SCHEV (Dartmouth, Wake, Brown, Delaware, Emory etc..)</p>

<p>But...</p>

<p>Do you know how many faculty members have actually LEFT W&M srictly because of salary issues? If so, could you give me names? Because as a recent graduate and current graduate student at W&M I know for a fact this isn't going on in the Faculty of Arts and Sciences or The School of Education. My friends in the Law School tell me they are actually adding faculty. </p>

<p>Are you just citing one article that the W&M News service produced last year, which has been followed up by several articles (from the same source) that have indicated faculty morale is much imporved and that, in fact, professors are not leaving in droves?</p>

<p>The fact of the matter is that nearly all profs. have their CV on the market at all times at every school. It would be logical for a history prof. at W&M to leave for Yale where there is more money and prestige. But the vast majority of Profs at W&M stay (and are happy) because W&M is one of the few Universities which focuses on undergraduate education with little other outside distraction ( You might want to read the article "Beer and Circus.") (e.g. corrupt athletics wit little accountability, or the McEducation style of undergraduate education that the pervades research Universitites that W&M is grouped with in Carnegie and USNews).</p>

<p>If you dispute what I say I challenge you to read the minutes of the W&M Faculty Assembly each month (or the BOV minutes) regarding faculty salaries and job satisfaction. They are available on-line for all to see. </p>

<p>HTH</p>

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<p>Precisely what I suspected, dogstreet.
Anyone looking at this charter stuff really has to take the schools dire pronouncements with a big grain of salt. Every year, it seems like the schools are all doomed, unless funding is increased here or autonomy is granted there. It's called lobbying. It doesn't surprise me at all that the information released by W&M is designed to leave the impression that the departures are for funding reasons. And the logic that gets you from there to giving them the right to raise tuition without oversight completely escapes me.</p>

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<p>dogstreet and vadad</p>

<p>thanks both for your info, I'll definitely be looking further into this now, although I'll probably be gone by the time anything happens, I'd like to be as informed as I can.</p>

<p>dogstreet, can you direct me (link?) to the minutes of those meetings?</p>