College is a great opportunity to make friends, have fun and find direction in life. Unfortunately, we have to pay out our noses for the privilege. To many, it is a tremendous relief to see Gov. Martin O’Malley’s proposed tuition freeze so close to approval by the state legislature. That is, of course, until you take a look at the books to see what effect the tuition freeze would have on the school and its students. The truth is saddening and scary.
Under O’Malley’s proposed budget, the state of Maryland is expected to run a deficit of up to $5 billion during the next four years, and passing a tuition freeze as part of the deal would jeopardize the entire University System of Maryland. Typically, the governor proposes a budget for higher education in the state, the legislature appropriates money, and the Board of Regents adjusts tuition so the school can cover expenses for the year. A tuition freeze would eliminate the last step in this process by preventing the Board of Regents from raising tuition.
It seems like there is a perception among students that the regents are a heartless lot that raises tuition solely to make us suffer. This really isn’t the case; tuition is a critical portion of the university’s operating budget. In 2007, the system derived 47 percent of its operating budget from tuition and fees, only 38 percent from the state and the last 15 percent from endowments, grants and private contracts.
The two big chunks from tuition and state funding act as a seesaw: When state funding is meager, tuition is raised to compensate. A tuition freeze would snap the seesaw in half by preventing the regents from raising enough money for the university to operate. Proponents of the freeze claim it would force the legislature’s hand and prevent it from cutting funding to higher education. With such a huge budget deficit looming, though, it would be impossible for the state to spend money it doesn’t have.
In this (very likely) scenario, student services would be cut, non-tenured faculty would be let go, class sizes would get even larger. The damage caused to the school would take a decade to repair.
I care about what happens to the university, both for altruistic reasons (I love this school) and for selfish ones (I want my degree to mean something when I graduate). If we really want to make our school both affordable and desirable to attend, we need to look past campaign promises to find realistic solutions to the tuition problem.
Enter the Maryland Higher Education Commission, which has a list of peer institutions (the universities of Cal-Berkeley, UCLA, Michigan, UNC and Illinois) whose quality we aspire to attain. One of the big differences between this university and our peer institutions is the size of our endowment. Take Michigan, for example. At the end of the 2005 fiscal year, its endowment totaled $4.9 billion, while Maryland’s was a meager $595 million. If we were both to reinvest 5 percent of the endowment back in the school, Michigan could outspend us by $215 million in a single year. If we really want to stop our dependence on the state legislature, we need to concentrate first on courting our wealthy alumni to aid the school in its rise to prominence and, second, attract bright students who can potentially become wealthy alumni.
I realize this argument seems very idealistic; however, it is less idealistic than counting on decades of rosy economic conditions and budget surpluses from the state. If we really care about our school, we need to sacrifice now to keep our future bright.
Benjamin Johnson is a senior physics major. He can be reached at katsuo@umd.edu.
