Students at the law school just received the following message from Dean Sager:
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This is a brief message about tuition. As I’ve indicated in our Town Hall Meetings, I am committed to two principles in regard to our tuition policy. First, to the extent that tuition is within the control of the Law School, I want to avoid any increases for any of you who are presently enrolled. Second, despite this, I want substantial student input on our policy, since as students you are well-positioned both to understand our financial needs and to be stewards of the interests of the student generations that will succeed you.
We have convened a Tuition Committee, which includes two student members chosen by the Student Bar Association: Marissa Saucedo and Ben Dower. They have been extremely helpful; indeed, I think it fair to say that they have been the most important members of the Committee.
The Tuition Committee has worked against the backdrop of the imposition of a campus-wide tuition increase, uniform across all schools and programs, and aimed at shoring up the University’s financial situation in difficult times. That campus-wide increase is 3.95% in each of the next two academic years. The only question open to the Tuition Committee and to me has been whether to seek a Law School tuition increase independent of this campus-wide provision.
The Committee recommended against any Law School tuition increase for presently enrolled students. This recommendation, of course, is entirely consistent with my commitment to avoid any such increases within the control of the Law School. The Committee also recommended two increases for incoming students: For the academic year 2010-2011, the Committee recommended that tuition for newly-enrolled resident students be increased by 1.05% (this will be a 5% increase when combined with the campus-wide increase); and for the academic year 2011-2012, the Committee recommended that tuition for newly-enrolled resident students be increased by 4.05% (this will be an 8% increase when combined with the campus-wide increase). With regard to the second of these increases, the Committee conditioned its support on the Law School’s plan to set aside a substantial additional sum for scholarships.
The increases of 1.05% and 4.05%, applicable only to newly-enrolled students going forward, will not yield a great deal of additional revenue for the Law School. But they will help, and I think the Tuition Committee’s recommendation of this limited increase is measured and wise. And I am happy to commit to a substantial additional set-aside for scholarships. Accordingly, I have adopted the Committee’s recommendation in full, and submitted it to the Provost’s Office as the Law School’s proposed tuition policy for the next two years. The Provost, in turn, has approved this proposal and forwarded it to the President’s Office.
I want to thank Marissa Saucedo and Ben Dower for their hard work and good judgment under rapid-fire circumstances, and thank Shauna Gibbons and the SBA for their help in putting the Tuition Committee in place. Good work often gets rewarded by more work, and this is no exception. I would like the Tuition Committee to continue it’s service throughout the academic year, and I would like to make the Committee a regular fixture of our committee structure going forward. With a number of new programs about to roll out, new tuition questions are likely to arise. And our experience this year suggests that the only way to avoid time-shortening surprises in the domain of tuition policy is to be as far ahead of the process as possible.
In the meantime, I want to extend my best wishes to all of you as finals (and the Holidays!) loom.
Larry Sager
Read the full article: What Dean Sager Has to Say About Tuition Increases @ UT Law