Category Archives: Admissions

The Jefferson Council President: Massive Expense Reductions Must Be Priority For New BOV

Posted on July 8, 2024 by | 17 comments

Since our inception four years ago, The Jefferson Council has relentlessly fought to implement our four founding pillars:

  1. Promote a culture of civil dialogue, the free exchange of competing ideas and intellectual diversity throughout the University
  2. Preserve the Jefferson Legacy
  3. Preserve the appearance of the Lawn as a UNESCO World Heritage site
  4. Support and reinvigorate the Honor System

Mr. Jefferson’s legacy cannot be preserved unless we ensure that the cost of a University of Virginia (UVA) education remains competitive with our peer universities. One of the many historical competitive advantages of UVA has been its 33% out-of-state undergraduate student body representation. This is a much higher percentage than our public university top-ranked competitors. The UVA undergraduate student body bears a close resemblance to quality private universities whose students come from states across America. As a result, we must be aware we are competing for middle class parents who desire a stellar education for their children but cannot afford comparable private college tuition.

You will see from the chart below that UVA is the most expensive top 50 public university in America. Perhaps more amazingly, a third and fourth year out-of-state undergraduate at UVA is charged more than his or her counterparts at Harvard.

COST OF ATTENDANCE FOR 2024-2025:

UNIVERSITY NAME
IN-STATE COST OF ATTENDANCE
OUT-OF-STATE COST OF ATTENDANCE
US NEWS AND WORLD REPORT RANKING
UNIVERSITY COST LINK

Princeton

N/A

$86,700

#1

Click for Princeton Costs

Harvard

N/A

$82,866

#3

Click for Harvard Costs.

Duke

N/A

$88,938

#7

Click for Duke Costs

Cal-Berkeley

$48,638

$82,838

#15 (tie)

Click for Cal Berkeley Costs

UCLA

$42,127

$76,327

#15 (tie)

Click for UCLA Costs

Vanderbilt

$94,072

$94,072

#18

Click for Vanderbilt Costs

Michigan

1st and 2nd year: $33,214

3rd and 4th year: $35,376

1st and 2nd year: $74,058

3rd and 4th year: $78,128

#21

Click for Michigan Costs1

UNC

$27,036

$60,040

#22

Click for UNC Costs

Florida

$23,530

$45,808

#28

Click for Florida Costs

Wisconsin

$30,008

$61,106

#35

Click for Wisconsin Costs

Georgia

$28,862

$49708

#47

Click for Georgia Costs

Virginia

1st year: $39,494

2nd year:
$40,556

3rd and 4th year: $43,558

McIntire: $52,420

1st year:
$79,574

2nd year:
$80,636

3rd and 4th year: $83,658

McIntire:
$93,022

#24

Click for UVA Costs
1 Michigan’s 2024-2025 costs not yet published; numbers are for 2023-2024

 

Quite simply, UVA is not competitive. I have no doubt we are losing well-qualified out-of-state students whose middle-class parents need to save money and are thus sending their children to less expensive quality state universities versus the private options. Of note is the University of North Carolina (UNC) which has been ranked higher than UVA for the past several years and is over $20,000 less expensive.

As of July 1, Governor Youngkin’s appointees now comprise the voting majority on the Board of Visitors (BOV). They must aggressively address the bloated administrative costs at UVA and slash expenses with a vengeance. The broadly defined middle class is being shut out since Access UVA scholarship aid stops at $125,000 in family income — excluding at least 40% of all families classified as “middle class” according to the Pew Research Center. The financial reality of our high tuition charges is that they prohibit deserving middle-class students from attending. The out-of-state student body is now comprised of the upper 5% family income portion of America or the poor/lower middle class. Where is the economic diversity in our student body?

Given the abysmal publicity the Ivies have received over their post-October 7 campus riots, Forbes and other media outlets are mentioning UVA as a “public Ivy” alternative. If we slash expenses and become truly competitive, we will benefit from this decision. If we don’t, UNC and the other “public Ivies” shown above will get top-drawer students who might otherwise attend UVA given the large cost differential. I spent four decades in corporate finance and would argue that the BOV needs to start forcing pragmatic business modeling philosophies on the very out-of-touch administrators who run UVA. You don’t beat the competition by pricing your product out of the market.

If expenses were slashed and savings applied to tuition reduction, we would see a huge increase in highly qualified out-of-state applicants. That’s just common sense, and frankly, the right thing to do. Massive expense reductions must be a high priority for the new BOV in the September Board meeting.

Rest assured that The Jefferson Council will continue to highlight these expense realities to the Board. We will not relent until hundreds of millions of dollars are slashed from the University’s bloated overhead expenses and applied directly to tuition reductions, making UVA the most competitive elite state university in America.

If you share our values and concerns, please join us in this battle with your financial support — we are stronger together.

INVEST IN TJC

 

17 Comments

Posted in Administration, Admissions, Board of Visitors, Finances

The Incomplete Case for Higher Tuition at UVa

Posted on October 19, 2023 by | 2 comments

by James A. Bacon

As the Board of Visitors ponders how much to raise tuition & fees in the next two academic years, the University of Virginia is grappling with strong inflationary pressures and a long-term shortfall in state aid, senior university administrators said Wednesday.

Even so, administrators told the Board’s Finance Committee, UVa offers a great “value proposition” compared to other Top 50 universities. Its in-state tuition is lower than that of top private universities, and its four-year graduation rate is the highest of any public university in the country.

The Finance Committee meeting yesterday marked the beginning of a two-month decision-making process. The purpose of the initial meeting, said Committee Chair Robert M. Blue, was to provide “context” for the discussion. A November hearing will allow students and others to express their views about college costs. The Board is scheduled to adopt a new tuition structure in December. 

Although university officials did not say explicitly that a tuition increase is justified, the “context” presented was geared to supporting such a conclusion. Board members offered no pushback during the one-and-a-half-hour session, asking only a few questions for purposes of clarification. They did not drill into the data proffered by administrators, nor, despite assurances that UVa was working assiduously to achieve efficiencies and reduce redundancies, did they ask for specifics. No one addressed faculty productivity, administrative overhead, or other drivers of university costs. Continue reading →

2 Comments

Posted in Administration, Admissions, Board of Visitors, Tuition, affordability, scholarships

An Open Letter to UVA President James E. Ryan

Posted on October 13, 2023 by | 4 comments

This article was published today by the James G. Martin Center for Academic Renewal. To read the full article click here.

The university’s admissions processes must comply with the Constitution.

by Walter L. Smith

The University of Virginia is facing a choice of historic significance: namely, whether to embrace admissions policies based on our colorblind Constitution or to engage in mass resistance to the supreme law of the land.

In Students for Fair Admissions v. Harvard and UNC, the United States Supreme Court held that the admissions programs at Harvard and UNC violated the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment. The Court’s ruling is, of course, binding on the parties themselves. However, this was no narrow decision. The broad constitutional mandate of colorblindness underlying the majority opinion is applicable to the University of Virginia, as well.

UVA’s Response

On August 1, 2023, in response to the landmark decision, university leaders issued a statement outlining the institution’s new admissions procedures. “The Court has made it clear,” the statement read in part, “that colleges and universities may not consider race, for its own sake, in their admission decisions. […] We will follow the law.”

However, the statement went on: “We also will do everything within our legal authority to recruit and admit a class of students who are diverse across every possible dimension and to make every student feel welcome and included here at UVA.” Continue reading.

4 Comments

Posted in Admissions

Top-Notch Commentary from The Jefferson Independent

Posted on September 24, 2023 by | 2 comments

The Jefferson Council commends to readers’ attention two essays published in The Jefferson Independent, the University of Virginia’s alternative student publication of news and commentary. We are delighted to see students tackling the weighty issues of free speech and diversity in admissions. Please take a look. You’ll be impressed by the quality of writing and reasoning. — JAB 

UVA’s FIRE Ranking Released: Grounds is alive with self-censorship, not civil discourse. Lauren Horan, president of the College Republicans, argues that UVa’s #6 free-speech by the Foundation of Individual Rights in Education (FIRE) reflects official policies, not real-world practice. Writes Lauren: “Grounds is alive with self-censorship, not civil discourse.”

Affirmative Action is Sugarcoated Discrimination. Mira Ramachandran examines the U.S. Supreme Court ruling on race in admissions from the perspective of an “Asian” student. “There is nothing moral about elite colleges penalizing Asian students on the SAT for performing too well,” she writes.

2 Comments

Posted in Admissions, Freedom of speech and expression

Ryan Ignored Board of Visitors in Formulating Admissions Policy

Posted on August 8, 2023 by | 11 comments

Screen capture from UVa’s “Common Application” form. UVa no longer has a checkbox for race — but it does ask if applicants belong to a Virginia-recognized Indian tribe and if they identify as a “sexual minority.” The applications also invite applicants to share their “personal or historic connection with UVa,” including legacy status and descent from “ancestors who labored at UVa.”

by James A. Bacon

When University of Virginia President Jim Ryan and Provost Ian Baucom announced the university’s new admissions policy last week, they made a point of saying that they had sought input and guidance from “leaders across the university,” including members of the Office of University Counsel.

But one key group was not consulted: the Board of Visitors.

That’s noteworthy because state code says the Board of Visitors sets the university’s admissions policy.

Describing the powers and authorities of the State Council of Higher Education for Virginia (SCHEV), state code notes that the SCHEV shall prepare enrollment projections for Virginia’s public colleges and universities. However, “the student admissions policies for such institutions and their specific programs shall remain the sole responsibilities of the individual governing boards.”

Not university presidents — the governing boards. Continue reading →

11 Comments

Posted in Admissions, Board of Visitors, Governance

Racial Check Boxes Out at UVa Admissions. Racial Life Experiences In.

Posted on August 1, 2023 by | 10 comments

by James A. Bacon

The University of Virginia will eliminate the race/ethnicity checkbox on admissions applications but will allow students to describe how their “personal experiences” — including but not limited to race or ethnicity — “shaped their ability to contribute,” announced President Jim Ryan in an announcement emailed to the University community Monday.

The change in admissions policy represents Ryan’s first tangible response to the U.S. Supreme Court’s recent ruling restricting the use of race as a factor in college admissions. Ryan had previously signaled his intention to “admit a class of students who are diverse across every possible dimension and to make every student feel welcome and included here at UVa.”

The tweaks to UVa’s admissions policy incorporated input from “leaders across the University,” including the Office of University Counsel, Ryan said.

Ryan’s announcement boiled down the changes to several bullet points: Continue reading →

10 Comments

Posted in Admissions

Tech to End Racial and Legacy Preferences in Admissions

Posted on August 1, 2023 by | 5 comments

I have cross-posted this article about Virginia Tech’s admissions policy from Bacon’s Rebellion. Tech is a peer institution, and its restatement of admissions policy sets an expectation that the University of Virginia should as well. The views expressed here are my own, not those of the Jefferson Council. — JAB

by James A. Bacon

In the wake of a U.S. Supreme Court ruling, Virginia Tech has announced that it will eliminate race and legacy status as factors in admissions. Information about an individual’s race/ethnicity will no longer be visible during the application process.

“Much of our recent success in attracting and graduating students from underrepresented minority and underserved backgrounds (including low-income, first generation and veteran students) has been achieved by lowering barriers to admissions, creating effective pre-college programs, and supporting our students while on campus,” said President Tim Sands. “We will increase our emphasis on those programs and support mechanisms going forward.”

These changes strike me as a reasonable compromise in response to the Supreme Court ruling. Dropping race and ethnicity as factors in admissions ends the invidious practice of explicit discrimination on the basis of race. It represents a huge defeat for “anti-racists” who believe that the only antidote to past discrimination against minorities is reverse discrimination in their favor.

Tech has coupled that decision with a formal end to favoring legacies. Given the fact that legacies are disproportionately White, the symbolic value is huge. Continue reading →

5 Comments

Posted in Admissions, Race, Equity and Diversity

UVa Board Should Demand Transparency on Racial-Preference Initiatives

Posted on August 1, 2023 by | 1 comment

Last week Jefferson Council President Tom Neale sent the following letter to University of Virginia Rector Robert Hardie, members of the Board of Visitors, and selected UVa administrative officials. 

July 25, 2023

Dear Mr. Hardie:

I am the President of The Jefferson Council for the University of Virginia, and am writing you regarding what we believe to be an egregious contravention of academic governance by Provost Ian Baucom.

In a presentation to the Faculty Senate on October 11, 2022, Provost Baucom described between $20 and $40 million in initiatives to recruit graduate students and faculty from “under-represented” racial/ethnic groups. When describing these and other academic initiatives to the Board of Visitors in its March 2023 meeting, however, he never alluded to the scope of the programs, or the racial preferences embedded in them.

For most of the year, the U.S. Supreme Court was widely expected to issue a ruling restricting the use of race as a factor in college admissions. Mr. Baucom had been cognizant enough of the debatable legality of the programs to seek guidance from the University Counsel, yet he failed to mention these concerns – or the nature of the University Counsel’s guidance, if any — in his presentation to the Board. Continue reading →

1 Comment

Posted in Admissions, Race, Equity and Diversity

Tagged

Empty, Airy Words

Posted on July 16, 2023 by | 4 comments

Credit: Bing Image Creator. Letters lighter than air.

by James A. Bacon

After the U.S. Supreme Court issued its ruling restricting the use of race as a higher-ed admissions criteria, University of Virginia President Jim Ryan and Provost Ian Baucom released a statement proclaiming that they would do everything in their power to admit a class of students that is “diverse across every possible dimension.” That commitment extended not just to race, ethnicity, and gender, they proclaimed, but “geography, socioeconomic status, first-generation status, disability status, religion, age, sexual orientation, viewpoint, ideology, and special talents.” (My italics.)

Some of those dimensions have occasioned far more attention than others. For example, UVa has put into place a large Diversity, Equity & Inclusion bureaucracy to advance racial/ethnic diversity. By contrast, far from promoting viewpoint and ideological diversity, university practices — hiring of left-of-center faculty, mandatory DEI statements and Student Guide tours — serve to drive off prospective students and faculty who are conservatively inclined.

In this post, I will argue that the Ryan administration pays little more heed to the geographic and socioeconomic criteria on its checklist than it does to viewpoint and ideological diversity. Students from poor households and rural households are severely underrepresented. But UVa does not care enough to even track their numbers. Continue reading →

4 Comments

Posted in Admissions

UVa Admissions Trends: Whites Down, Asians Up, Blacks a Question Mark

Posted on July 8, 2023 by | 4 comments


by James A. Bacon

As the University of Virginia community debates the implications of the U.S. Supreme Court ruling restricting the use of race in higher-ed admissions, the Jefferson Council is publishing publicly available data that provides context for the discussion.

UVa’s office of Institutional Research and Analysis publishes three types of admissions data (applications, admissions, and yield) broken down by race/ethnicity back to the 2016-17 academic year. Three trends stand out:

  • Once a dominant majority of UVa students, Whites officially became a minority (47%) of the entering 1st-year student body in 2023.
  • Asians were the fastest-growing racial/ethnic group at UVa, applying in greater numbers, being accepted in higher percentages, and (other than Whites) accepting those offers in higher percentages.
  • Despite applying and being accepted in growing numbers, the percentage of Blacks accepting their offers actually declined slightly, in contrast to the other racial/ethnic groups.

Continue reading →

4 Comments

Posted in Admissions