UNIVERSITY administrators always are quick to blame Richmond for falling rankings and rising costs. But it seems that even when Richmond comes through with dollars for specific projects, the University would rather students foot the bill. The latest example of this soak-the-students policy is the financing of the Peabody Hall renovation.
Last year the University announced that it was moving the admissions office into Peabody Hall, and moving out the student groups who called it home. The change was needed to make way for the Alderman Library expansion. But it seemed that the building that was good enough for students and the Dean of Students was uninhabitable for Dean of Admissions John Blackburn and his crew of administrators. They wanted $2 million to bring it in line with the admissions office's tastes. In order to finance the renovation, the Board of Visitors approved a $20 increase in the application fee for hopeful undergraduates.
There was only one problem. The Board needed Gov. James S. Gilmore's approval for the renovation, and he was not about to give it. Gilmore refused to allow the project to go forward so long as it was financed by student fee increases.
As Gilmore noted in his address to the boards of visitors of Virginia's public colleges and universities last April, parents and students bear an incredible financial burden for higher education. This heavy load includes not only tuition payments, but all the assorted fees and surcharges universities can dream up and tack on. It seems like every year the University raises one of these fees, figuring that $30 or $40 fees here and there won't hurt anybody. But they do.
What makes the application fee increase so pernicious is that it stands as a barrier to higher education to many lower and middle income families. University administrators may not feel bad for rich students driving Range Rovers whining about application fees, but the truth is that for every rich kid in a fancy car there are 10 students whose parents scrimp and save to give them a piece of the American dream. Application fees hit hard because no one applies to just one school. Access to higher education and a better life comes at a steep price. Some send applications to 10 or more universities, meaning that families can spend upwards of $1,000 just for the right to apply.
While the University may see application fees as just another source of revenue, the reality is that the fees impact real people and force them into choices about their future that should not be made at such an early age. Gilmore explained this to the boards of visitors in April when he said, "And so I ask you not to dilute the savings we have provided for hard-working families by approving back-door increases in other fees and costs. It is not fair to take with the left hand what we give with the right."
Back to Peabody Hall, Gilmore had a better way to finance admissions' fancy new space. He proposed to give the University $2 million in state funds specifically for Peabody if the Board would roll back the application fee. This language appears in Gilmore's budget bill pending before the General Assembly. As one Gilmore administration official said in a personal interview, "the Governor has put tax dollars behind his principles." Now it is the Board's turn to do right by students and their families. Predictably, neither the Board nor the administration has taken any action on the issue.
Too often the administration complains that Richmond has not taken care of the University. We hear Madison Hall officials snivel, "if only the Governor would give us money, oh what good we could do." Well, this Governor has delivered for higher education all over the Commonwealth. Here at the University he has increased, both in raw dollars and as a percentage, the amount of money the University will receive. When it comes to the specific question of Peabody Hall, Gilmore has asked the University not to finance new offices for administrators on the backs of students and their families. He has provided the funds to make it an easy choice. The only question is whether the University will listen.
(Sam Waxman's column appears Thursdays in The Cavalier Daily.)
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