The Graham-Frey lawsuit, tuition hikes, and university funding
With the lawsuit filed by Bob Graham and Lou Frey (and later joined by the BOG), pending budget cuts, and talk of tuition hikes on the horizon, there needs to be some general discussion of university funding in Florida. As far as I can tell, there are six sources of revenue for universities:
- Public funding
- Tuition
- Donations
- Grants and contracts
- Auxiliary units
- Patents and licensing
You may consolidate some of these categories or split one or two, but that’s essentially it. Because the rough political consensus in Florida has been that undergraduate students pay approximately 25% of the costs of their education, raising student tuition even a significant amount can only pay for a modest increase in a university’s overall funding. At the consultation Wednesday, administrators confirmed that a 5% tuition hike in the spring would fill less than 1% of the 4% expected cuts, and I think the state’s university presidents made that point in front of legislative committees last week. Over time, larger hikes can change the funding mix, but it won’t reap a miracle.
The same modest change is possible growing endowments, but for a different reason: people give foundations money for specific purposes, and unrestricted endowment donations are less frequent than either I or foundation officers would prefer. The result is that unless there is a specific goal and donors willing to give money to something like a an endowment for sabbaticals or bridge funding*, increasing the endowment is less likely to benefit general faculty salaries than to raise the next library or provide a stipend to a small number of faculty in endowed chair positions. The library benefits everyone, but so does a stronger sabbatical and leave program and better general salaries.
Contracts and grants are important, but even indirect costs are short-term benefits, evanescent if hit rates decline. And a surprising amount of indirect costs are absorbed in animal care. And investigators are unhappy with how post-award administration works at USF.
So while I expect tuition to go up, and I’d love there to be a successful capital campaign that raises money for new library facilities and endowments for sabbaticals and bridge funding, any of those decisions can only be part of a broader mix to support higher education. A substantial part has to come from a more secure base of public funding.
