Vice President for Finance Virginia Gregg said that there has been “no great departure” from the past in the planning of the Fiscal Year 2006 budget, set to start on July 1, and that impacts such as the seven percent tuition rise came as a result of many different programs, not a rise in any single area.
“World-famous scientists do not come cheap, but it’s important to growing sciences and making us better as an institution,” Gregg said, referring to the new professors and constellation researchers that have been hired in the past few years. Gregg said that 60-70 percent of the Institute’s annual budget goes toward labor compensation and benefits such as salaries for faculty and staff, and that this is one of the areas that has seen the largest jump in recent years. At last month’s Town Meeting, President Shirley Ann Jackson announced that 140 new faculty have been hired in the past four years.
Other than hiring new faculty, Gregg said they had cost rises in other areas, such as health care, which will also be rising seven percent next year. She said the rise in that area could have been much higher, such as the double-digits seen at corporations around the country, but that Vice President Curtis Powell and the human resources division worked hard this year to keep the costs as low as possible. Retirement and debt service on new construction projects such as the south campus renovation project have also contributed to rising costs.
Director of Budget and Finance Planning Eileen McLoughlin also pointed out that operating costs such as energy are always quite considerable at large institutions such as RPI. With new buildings such as the Biotech Center, parking garage, and EMPAC being added to the campus, these costs are rising, but a great deal of it has been recouped. Federal grants allow for some of the costs of a “research platform,” such as facilities and staff, to be defrayed by the grant, and Gregg said that roughly 60 percent of the cost of operating the Biotech Center has been covered by these grants.
Gregg also pointed out that in general it is “very expensive to upkeep the physical plant of a college or university,” citing that many of the physical improvements to campus that had been delayed, such as the renovation of the dorms, have been concentrated in the past few years.
In addition, over the past few years some costs have been kept down and deferred, with tuition rising four and a half percent and room and board unchanged last year, while all three could have gone up more. Jackson also announced at the Town Meeting that this year will be the first year that need-based aid will be increased along with tuition, stating that “successful upperclass students may be eligible for additional financial aid if the tuition increase presents an economic hardship.” The financial aid office, in an e-mail sent to students yesterday, said that this hardship needs to be demonstrated through a written appeal to the office. This means that while the neediest of students will be helped through the rise in tuition, many will bear the full rise.
Commenting on the tuition rise, Gregg said, “It’s important to put it in context. Colleges and universities have to cover their costs.” She said that while at a technical institution such as RPI there is a tendency to get down into the details of the budget and what is causing rises, it’s important to look at the budget from a holistic sense and examine the broad benefits. Tuition traditionally only covers approximately 60 percent of the cost of an undergraduate education, and when costs rise elsewhere it is necessary to bring in funds in other ways such as tuition rises.
Assistant Vice President for Finance Russ Giambelluca added that moving costs gradually is much preferred to keeping costs low as soon as possible and making dramatic jumps in cost of attendance, as has been seen at some public universities that have been raising their tuitions as much as 18 percent after years of strict restrictions.
