Tuition waivers may be cut back
Utah State University will no longer be giving full tuition waivers due to a growing difference between tuition prices and the scholarship budget.
The amount available for scholarships for new students is decreasing because tuition prices are going up and the budget is staying the same, said Jenn Putnam, Admissions assistant director.
Incoming freshmen, who in past years would have been awarded full tuition waivers, will receive a cash amount of $1,375 per semester instead.
Tuition is currently $1,425 each semester and students receiving scholarships are left to pay the difference – a difference that will grow a lot over the next few years, Putnam said.
Putnam said initially they were told to figure scholarships according to a 6 percent tuition increase annually but are now dealing with a proposed 43 percent increase over the next three years.
“We’ve decided let’s give less to more people instead of more to less people,” Putnam said.
Despite scholarship decreases, Putnam said USU is 13 percent above the national average for funding students. On average, 1,000 out of 3,400 new students are awarded full or half-tuition waivers as are 1,700 continuing students, she said.
Another reason USU is hoping to move away from waiver-based scholarships is because they are not as good for the university.
“Waivers are ‘lost revenue’ for the university while endowed scholarships are income, so it puts the university on a more financially stable base,” said Joyce Kinkead, vice provost for undergraduate studies and research.
The problem lies in receiving endowed scholarships, Putnam said, stating that little money awarded to USU comes from donations.
The scholarship budget consists of waiver amounts from the state of several million dollars, while privately donated scholarship money amounts to $100,000, Kinkead said.
Another worry comes from certain state funds that decrease each year. For example House Bill 175, that was passed by the legislature to help out-of-state students when residency laws changed, decreases yearly and will disappear after 2009.
Putnam said universities across the state are experiencing the same crisis. Budgets are not increasing and enrollment is becoming more difficult to handle due to fewer high school graduates among other factors.
No state university is growing like it need to in order to receive more state support, Putnam said. She said she worries how scholarship changes will affect enrollment.
“Working with recruitment it’s definitely something you worry about. You’d always like to be able to give more,” Putnam said.
USU is currently – and always – lobbying for more money from the state, Putnam said. In the meantime, she said she hopes students who received scholarships at the university will feel the obligation and desire to give back.
“If every student over the last five years that was scholarshipped gave back $10 it would make a big difference,” Putnam said.
Over the next few years it is likely that USU scholarships will still be “waiver-based” even without full-tuition waivers being given, Kinkead said. The majority of scholarship money will come from the waiver funds because USU does not have “sufficient private funds to draw on,” she said.
-hilaryi@cc.usu.edu