Category Archives: Finances

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

Posted on July 8, 2024 by | 19 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

 

19 Comments

Posted in Administration, Admissions, Board of Visitors, Finances

An Open Letter to Governor Youngkin: Pick Fighters for the UVA Board

Posted on June 28, 2024 by | 5 comments

28 June 2024
Glenn Youngkin
Governor of the Commonwealth of Virginia

Dear Governor Youngkin,

You are getting close to the June 30 deadline for announcing five new nominees to the University of Virginia Board of Visitors. As of July 1, your appointees will comprise a Board majority for the first time in your two-and-a-half years in office. To leave a lasting legacy, however, you cannot nominate business-as-usual candidates.

UVA’s rector, Robert Hardie, is a Northam-era holdover, and he works with President Ryan to set the agenda, frame the discussion, and control the flow of information of the Board. Both men support the status quo, and both will have the backing of administrators, faculty, and student leadership who are hostile to your vision for the University.

You need to nominate fighters willing to ask hard questions and shrug when their names are dragged through the mud. Don’t appoint passive candidates to avoid stirring up controversy. They will accomplish nothing.

You also need to set clear priorities. 

The Jefferson Council offers the following:

Address astronomical tuition cost and administrative bloat. The cost of attending UVA is pricing out the middle class, especially for out-of-state students. You have called upon all Virginia universities to cut costs and tame tuition. Cosmetic, one-time cuts won’t accomplish your goal. The Board members you appoint must do the hard work of digging deep into UVA’s cost structure. Step one: dismantle the vast administrative apparatus erected to pursue “social justice” and “racial equity,” loosely referred to as Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (DEI). The Board of Visitors committed in 2020 to carrying out the recommendations of the Racial Equity Task Force, which called for spending between $700 million and $950 million to rectify historical wrongs. The Board must scrutinize that spending. 

But that’s just a start.

Reduce spending on feel-good initiatives. Does UVA really need more guidance and emotional-wellness counselors? Does being “Great and Good” necessitate building social-justice partnerships with the community? Why do the highest-paid professors teach the fewest courses? How aggressively does UVA reallocate resources from low-enrollment departments to high-enrollment departments? There are many areas to consider cutting costs, and The Jefferson Council is prepared to sit down with you and the Board of Visitors to identify the low-hanging fruit as well as long-term solutions.

Advance free speech and intellectual diversity. You have asked every Virginia university to devise a plan for advancing free speech and intellectual diversity. UVA’s website may boast a high free speech rating, but actions from administrators and faculty alike increasingly contradict that label and demand your attention. Faculty and staff are marching relentlessly to an ideological extreme, utilizing “DEI statements” to filter out candidates with different views. Departments have become self-perpetuating cliques of the like-minded. The Board needs to lay bare the intellectual monoculture that prevails at UVA and devise strategies to change it. The Jefferson Council would like to partner with you in this effort in various ways, including by providing diverse perspectives from among our membership and network of UVA alumni and donors.

Preserve Jefferson’s legacy. Thomas Jefferson was a man like few others produced by history. He was not a saint, but today at UVA, he is often portrayed as a slave-holding rapist. A Youngkin-appointed Board needs to preserve his legacy. There are many ways we are ready to work with you on this, but here are two quick and easy wins that can signal the new priorities: 

First, protect the dignity of the Lawn, part of a UNESCO world heritage site visited by tourists around the world, by forbidding student residents, in their terms of lease, from placing posters and flyers on their doors. No one’s free speech rights will be violated. Lawn residents have numerous other options to express their views.

Second, sever relations with the Student Guides club that provides student and historical tours. Student administrative-sanctioned events must have a welcoming script and guides willing to deliver it. However, these tours have degenerated into discourses on slavery, segregation, racism, and the persecution of indigenous peoples. Many students and parents have been turned off and never return. 

Your next Board of Visitors appointments assume their seats at a critical time for Mr. Jefferson’s university, and for your legacy. Nominate individuals who will have the grit to fight for the university, its history, its legacy, and its students. Nominate men and women who are capable of making the hard decisions to lead UVA back to a position of great character and excellence.

Respectfully,

The Jefferson Council
Executive Committee

Thomas Neale, President
Sam Richardson, Executive Director
Peter Bryan, Treasurer
Chip Vaughan, Secretary

5 Comments

Posted in Administration, Board of Visitors, Finances, Governance, History, Honor code, Intellectual diversity, Jefferson legacy

University of Virginia Spends $20 Million On 235 Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion Employees

Posted on March 5, 2024 by | 16 comments

It takes tuition payments from nearly 1,000 undergraduates just to pay their base salaries!


The following is an excerpt from an article published by OpenTheBooks, a nonprofit group dedicated to transparency in government spending, for which The Jefferson Council contributed research and fact-checking. OpenTheBooks CEO Adam Andrzejewski will speak at The Jefferson Council 3rd annual meeting April 9.

The University of Virginia has at least 235 employees under its “diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI)” banner — including 82 students — whose total cost of employment is estimated at $20 million. That’s $15 million in cash compensation plus an additional 30 percent for the annual cost of their benefits.

In contrast, last Friday, the University of Florida dismissed its DEI bureaucracy, saving students and taxpayers $5 million per year. The university terminated 13 full-time DEI positions and 15 administrative faculty appointments. Those funds have been re-programmed into a “faculty recruitment fund” to attract better people who actually teach students.

No such luck for learning at Virginia’s flagship university — founded by Thomas Jefferson no less. UVA has a much deeper DEI infrastructure. Continue reading →

16 Comments

Posted in Administration, Finances, Race, Equity and Diversity

UVa Eyes Potential Cost Savings

Posted on December 10, 2023 by | 2 comments


by James A. Bacon

The Ryan administration defended its record of cost cutting Friday during a presentation to the Board of Visitors and pointed to an ongoing Operational Efficiency and Effectiveness Study as a source of savings in the future.

The study, which commenced in September, has focused on five objectives, Chief Operating Officer J.J. Davis told the Board:

  •  Maximize scalability and efficiency
  • Unlock the power of technology
  • Reduce manual work
  • Minimize duplication
  • Align activities to mission

So far, said Davis, three major themes have emerged: people and organization; optimization and scale; and technology as an enabler. Over the next six months, in the words of her presentation slide deck, the study will conduct a “deeper examination of opportunities warranting further analysis.” She will report back to the Board in June. Continue reading →

2 Comments

Posted in Board of Visitors, Finances, Restructuring

How Does UVa In-State Tuition Compare to Other Top 50 Universities?

Posted on September 14, 2023 by | Leave a comment

UVa is the bold orange line at the far right. To view a more legible image of this graph, click here and scroll to page 31 of the pdf.

by James A. Bacon

The University of Virginia Board of Visitors sets tuition & fees every other year. This is one of those years. In December the Board is scheduled to announce tuition and fees for the following two academic years. The decision-making process is sure to be controversial, as a number of Youngkin appointees on the board are fiscal hawks who hope to keep costs down and tuition hikes low.

The Ryan administration fired an opening salvo by distributing the graph above, which shows UVa in a highly flattering light. If you are a Virginia resident and wish to attend one of the Top 50 universities in the country (as rated by USNWR, or U.S. News & World Report), UVa charges the lowest tuition and fees. The graph is hard to read, but UVa is represented by the bold orange line at the far right, so you can see that it is the lowest by a wide margin.

Presentation of the graph prompted the most animated discussion by Board members so far in the September meeting. Continue reading →

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Posted in Finances, Tuition, affordability, scholarships

What Is a AAA Bond Rating Worth?

Posted on September 14, 2023 by | 3 comments

The University of Virginia’s AAA bond rating was confirmed by the S&P bond rating agency recently, and verbally confirmed by Fitch. UVa is one of only four public universities in the country with the highest possible assessment of financial strength. What’s that rating worth to the university?

Board member and former finance chair Jim Murray had an answer for the Board of Visitors Thursday — $33 million. If all of UVa’s debt was rated two notches lower at a single A, as is the case with 63 public universities whose bonds S&P has examined, the difference in interest payments would be $33 million a year.

Through many years of turnover through Republican and Democratic administrations, protecting the AAA rating is one priority that every Board has shared. — JAB

3 Comments

Posted in Finances

UVa Board Trims Next-Year Tuition by 0.7%. Big Whoop.

Posted on June 2, 2023 by | 11 comments

by James A. Bacon

Responding to a Youngkin administration request for Virginia’s public colleges and universities to curb tuition increases, the University of Virginia Board of Visitors voted this morning to reduce a scheduled 3.7% tuition hike next year to 3.0%.

As explained by Chief Operating Officer J.J. Davis, the shaving of $5.5 million from the budget represents a “good faith” effort to comply with the administration’s request. But in response to a question, she acknowledged that it only “partially” complied.

“This is very late in the budgetary cycle,” which closes June 30, said former Rector and the board’s financial guru James Murray. “We’re supposed to have a budget number in March. It’s very difficult in this point the year to say, ‘Go find millions of dollars.'” He described the partial rollback as “a concession to political reality.”

In other business, the Board also approved a $5.4 billion operating budget for Fiscal 2023-24, which begins July 1. The budget encompasses the academic divisions of the University of Virginia main campus, the campus in Wise, and the UVa Health System. The UVa main-campus operating budget amounts to $2.3 billion.

To an outside observer, the proceedings were remarkable — for the lack of oversight. Board input into what is arguably the most important vote of the year was inconsequential. Aside from praise for the UVa financial staff and a few requests for clarifications, board members had little to say. They offered no substantive questions. They provided zero pushback. Continue reading →

11 Comments

Posted in Administration, Board of Visitors, Finances, State funding

Is Stingy State Funding to Blame for Tuition Increases?

Posted on May 8, 2023 by | 4 comments


by James A. Bacon

In explaining the cause of rising tuition & fees at the University of Virginia, we described last week how the driving force over the past 20 years has been a relentless increase in spending. Expenditures in the academic division of the University of Virginia, fueled by an expansion in salaries, increased 135% between 2002 and 2022, far outpacing the 59% rise in the Consumer Price Index and 20% increase in enrollment.

But that’s not the whole story. While expenditures were surging, state support for UVa and other public universities in the Old Dominion lagged far behind. Colleges and universities, the higher-ed lobby has argued, have had little choice but to offset public parsimony by raising tuition & fees.

A Jefferson Council analysis suggests that there is some truth to this assertion at UVa but it falls woefully short in explaining the ascent of tuition & fees to stratospheric levels. After adjusting for inflation and enrollment growth, roughly 30% of the tuition hikes have offset the decline in state funding while 70% went toward higher spending.

While coping with stagnant state funding, UVa presidents and Boards of Visitors looked to increased gifts and higher tuition to pay for their aggressive spending increases. Gifts have surged over the 20-year period and now equal state support as a source of funding at UVa. But the bulk of new revenue has come from tuition hikes. Continue reading →

4 Comments

Posted in Finances, Tuition, affordability, scholarships

UVa’s 20-Year Expenditure Explosion

Posted on May 4, 2023 by | 3 comments


by James A. Bacon

Tis the season for Virginia’s universities to announce how much they are raising tuition & fees for the upcoming academic year. Virginia Tech’s Board of Visitors has jacked up tuition by 4.9% and the College of William & Mary by 4.5%. Virginia Commonwealth University is considering an increase of 4% to 5%, George Mason University 3%. After a bout of inflation that peaked around 9% and is still running about 6%, putting both university and family budgets under stress, the pressure on governing boards is intense.

At the University of Virginia a tuition increase has been baked into the cake since November 2021 when the Board of Visitors approved a two-year increase of 4.7% in 2022-23 and 3.7% in 2023-24. Under pressure from Governor Glenn Youngkin to hold down charges, UVa issued a rebate to in-state undergraduate students to offset last year’s increase. But there has been no indication that the Board will reconsider a refund in 2023-24. In-state undergrads could well find themselves paying 8.4% more next year.

UVa officials, like their peers at the state’s other public universities, blame the failure of state support for higher education to keep pace with growing enrollment and the escalating Consumer Price Index. In the past, UVa’s board has rarely questioned that claim. But now some board members want to dig deeper into the numbers. Continue reading →

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Posted in Administration, Finances

Auditors Find “Material Weakness” in UVa Financial Statements

Posted on December 9, 2022 by | 5 comments

Editor’s note: This is the first in an ongoing series of articles based on material presented to the University of Virginia Board of Visitors — material that never sees the light of day in standard news sources. We aim to provide a more complete understanding of how the university is governed. 

Auditors found a “material weakness” in the University of Virginia’s Fiscal 2022 financial statements but said they had uncovered no indication of fraudulent or illegal activity.

“We have resolved any significant difficulties experienced,” David Rasnic, head of the Auditor of Public Accounts’ higher-ed auditing team, told the Board of Visitors Wednesday.

The audit revealed two sources of concern that increased the risk that might give rise to financial misstatements. First, there was no central authority to align the financial reporting of UVa’s academic division and its healthcare division. Creating a central authority, said Rasnic, “would be helpful.” Continue reading →

5 Comments

Posted in Finances