The student-university relationship is inherently unequal. As students, to maximize our chances of success in an increasingly competitive global economy, we are dependent upon universities to educate us. However, with an unprecedented number of American students flocking to higher education, universities are no longer reliant upon any of us to fill their student bodies.
In short, students continue to need universities, while universities are no longer dependent on us. Such an unbalanced arrangement between the purchasers and providers of educational services creates the obvious risk that universities will abuse their market position to extract exorbitant fees from students. Tragically, Brown succumbed to this temptation a few weeks ago, and we will all suffer gravely from the University’s carelessness.
On Jan. 30, the University Resources Committee released its recommendations for the fiscal year 2015 budget, which was approved by the Corporation this month. The University plans to generate $937.7 million in revenue to offset its proposed expenses of $941.5 million for the upcoming year. To close the budget gap, the University will draw approximately $4 million from its reserves.
So far, so good. Yet the URC made a crucial mistake: It chose to balance the budget on the backs of students. Despite the fact that annual tuition at the University is fast approaching the country’s per-capita income, the URC voted to further increase undergraduate and medical tuition by roughly 4 percent. As a result, about three-quarters of students enrolled at the University will be assessed approximately $2,000 in higher annual tuition costs.
To save face for its folly, the URC recommended that the financial aid budget be increased by 5.5 percent to $104.1 million, which the Corporation also approved. In itself, such a gesture appears to convey the URC’s “respect” for the financial welfare of the University’s students. In truth, though, this decision will not come close to offsetting the higher tuition costs that it proposes. If you, like the majority of Brown students, do not receive financial aid, the URC’s actions will only serve to help make college or medical school even more unaffordable than it already is.
Some will argue that the URC had no choice but to recommend raising tuition in light of the budget deficit. But such an argument is at best specious and at worst willfully deceptive. While there are a number of potential avenues the University could have pursued, three particular options exist that collectively would have balanced the University’s budget, maintained the quality of its educational services and not further exacerbated the financial difficulties faced by the student body.
First, the University could have limited faculty wage increases. While having a strong faculty is essential to maintaining the quality and reputation of the University, it is unjustifiable to dole out excessive pay raises in lean times, especially when professors are teaching far less than they used to. From 1988 to 2004, in fact, the teaching loads of professors fell nationally by 42 percent. Instead of being paid for teaching, professors are incentivized by anachronistic tenure policies to spend ever-increasing amounts of time doing research. While research can provide societal benefits and some educational opportunities, it is hard to believe that it is a more efficient way of educating students than direct, quality instruction.
And yet professor salaries continue to skyrocket. Despite a national inflation rate of just 1.5 percent in 2013, for example, Brown chose to award its faculty a roughly 3 percent raise for next year. This was unnecessary and, given the little time many professors devote to instruction, groundless. There is no reason for such a foolish mistake to occur again in the future.
Secondly, as The Herald’s editorial page board recently suggested, the University could have established a committee to look into potential savings to be gleaned from administrative streamlining. There is ample evidence to suggest that the savings from such an exercise could be large. Administrative costs at universities across the country, including at Brown, have been ballooning for decades — between 1993 and 2007, for example, spending on administration per student increased 61 percent while spending on instruction rose by just 39 percent per student at 200 universities nationwide. With tuition historically expensive, now is a perfect opportunity to cut back on some of these unnecessary expenditures.
How much could streamlining save? A recent case study focusing on Dartmouth suggested that the college is overcharging its students by about $9,000 per year to fund activities not related to instruction. While some administrative services, such as counseling and financial aid, are unavoidable and can potentially be of great benefit to the student body, there is simply no reason that total administrative costs should represent nearly 40 percent of any student’s net tuition bill, as they do at Dartmouth.
Lastly, Brown should have made better use of its endowment. As The Herald reported, Brown’s endowment achieved a return of 12.6 percent last year, representing about $300 million in profits. While some of this will provide additional financial support to various University departments, the lion’s share could have been used to provide every student with significant financial relief. If only half of the profits were spent on the 8,619 undergraduate and graduate students at Brown, each student could have received a one-time allowance of over $17,000 to lower tuition.
Of course, the University would never agree to such a proposal. Having a large endowment is a sign of prestige, and prestige is necessary to ascend the college ranking tables. Nor, frankly, would a one-time financial gift be wise, or sustainable, in the long term. But what about investing just a fraction of those capital gains — say, 10 percent or 20 percent — in students? Not only would the University be able to reverse the 4 percent tuition increase, but it also would be able to cut tuition sustainably. What better way to signal Brown’s commitment to inclusivity and affordability?
By seeking to raise tuition further, Brown has regrettably chosen to forcibly extract money from its students to fund extraneous activities that have minimal educational benefits. Not only is this profoundly unfair, but it also risks pushing talented, less fortunate students away from the University.
While time may be short, the University can still rectify its error. But to do so, Brown will need to actually listen to its students, resist the temptation to gouge them and endure some cutbacks. Unfortunately, given some of the University’s missteps over the past few months, I am not confident it is capable of doing that.
Kunal Sindhu MD’17 can be contacted at kunal_sindhu@brown.edu.
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