Brooke Grasso
Metro Editor
Traditional undergraduate students at the University of La Verne are facing yet another tuition increase of around 3 percent-4 percent for the 2016-17 school year, Chief Financial Officer Avo Kechichian said.
With the current proposal, students should expect an increase of $1,240 to $1,538, raising tuition from $38,560 to between $39,800 and $41,000 per year. A final decision will be made in February.
“When I came to La Verne I was given a really fantastic financial aid package,” senior political science major Alyssa Carroll said. “It covered the vast majority of my tuition, and that was amazing because I worked so hard and I didn’t want to come out of my undergrad in mounds of debt, but it has been difficult to pay more every year.”
Carroll has been at ULV since her freshman year and has experienced a tuition increase each year.
Provost Jonathan Reed said the tuition increase is necessary to provide students with a more enriching college experience. In order to improve student services and facilities and maintain high-quality professors, the University needs more money, Reed said.
“We need to pay competitive salaries to recruit and retain the best professors and administrators,” Reed said. “We are always trying to improve student services and trying to improve the facilities.”
It is possible to cut budgets from smaller groups and clubs, but Reed believes that, by increasing tuition, ULV can keep groups and services even if they provide just a few students with a beneficial experience.
“The trick is how do you, with the money you have, maximize the student educational experience,” Reed said. “The primary way to improve the educational experience is very often through staffing and programs.”
Carroll agreed: “I would rather everyone pay a little more than cut programs. It’s because this time in our lives is so short and so special. This is our opportunity to try things.”
Tuition needs to be increased in order to provide for these services because ULV is 99 percent enrollment based, meaning tuition and room and board provides the vast majority of funding for the University.
Of students’ tuition money, 47 percent goes toward salaries and benefits for employees, 24-25 percent funds student scholarships and the remaining goes toward operations and other expenses, Kechichian said.
The University began the school year with a budget of $195 million. Around $47 million went to students in the form of scholarships and $90 million paid for compensation and benefits for employees. The remaining $58 million was used for operations and other expenses.
While University administrators believes tuition needs to increase, they want to keep the tuition increase as low as possible, Reed said.
“We can definitely count on a tuition increase,” Reed said. “Historically, at ULV and across the nation, it is just the reality of the world we live in. The question really is how large it might be and how does that relate to financial aid.”
Although financial aid packages will not change with the tuition increase, administration is working on how it can provide additional work opportunities to juniors and seniors who have a low estimated family contribution, Reed said.
Kechichian attributes much of the reasoning for continuous tuition increase to growing enrollments. Higher student enrollment demands more resources, such as classrooms and faculty, Kechichian said.
With this year’s freshman class being the largest ever at La Verne, more faculty and staff had to be hired and more resources had to be implemented. The number of full-time faculty jumped from 238 to 263.
The University budgeted for 620 freshman and has the goal to reach an enrollment of 2,800 traditional undergraduate students by 2020. When 720 freshman enrolled this fall, and total enrollment exceeded 2,900 students, resources were stretched to their limits.
“A budget is a plan, and plans do change,” Kechichian said. “You can never pinpoint who is going to show up at the door.”
Kechichian said a way to prevent increases would be by growing the endowment. By doing this, the University would have more money for financial aid, leaving a larger chunk of tuition money to go elsewhere.
At $62 million, ULV’s endowment is lower than that of other private liberal arts colleges. Redlands, Pepperdine and Chapman’s endowments all exceed ULV’s by at least $40 million: Redlands at $103 million, Pepperdine at over $800 million, and Chapman at $273 million.
Although La Verne has the smallest endowment out of all of its competitors, it also has the lowest tuition and highest discount rate, according to the U.S. Department of Education’s college scorecard.
The best way to grow the endowment, according to Homa Shabahang, vice president of strategic enrollment management and communications, is through fundraising.
The office of university advancement has been working on getting more donations from alumni, philanthropic groups and the Board of Trustees. It succeeded in getting 100 percent of the members on the Board to donate to ULV, Shabahang said.
The University is cutting its expenses where it can to create a smaller increase. Administrators are advised to turn off their lights when they can, reduce their electricity use, and office-cleaning services have been reduced to every three days rather than every day.
Max Charman is just one of the students who will be feeling the effects of the increase.
Charman is an international student from England. He plans to work for a local hotel as a valet driver when he goes home for winter and summer break to help pay for his expenses.
“This is just another burden that will force us to live more frugally, and more energy that can be taken away from studying,” Charman said. “You have the stress of finding a job, finding out what you want to do, and on top of that you are paying thousands of dollars.”
International students do not qualify for work study, cannot get federal aid through FAFSA and only receive scholarships from the university, which puts their financial aid below what many need.
To ensure it is taking students into account during their decisions, administration has met with ASULV numerous times and will continue to as the decisions become more defined.
“It is a very important process to make sure we talk to students to understand their perspective,” Shabahang said, “To talk to the academic side and understand their needs in order to provide the best possible educational experience to our students.”
ASULV has attended Budget Information Group meetings, conducted by Kechichian, who proposes the budget for the next fiscal year and has also met with the Board of Trustees to express its concerns on behalf of all ULV students.
“They have been forthcoming this year and that’s a really good change from last year because we have had more transparency,” said Eden Vasquez, ASULV vice president of finance. “Administration has been very receptive to having additional meetings about tuition increase and things like that.”
Last year, ASULV started the Tuition Talks campaign to inform students of the tuition increase that was not communicated to them. The campaign will continue on social media again this year to make sure students are aware and informed of the upcoming increase.
“It really helps us to have personal stories to take to administration to humanize it to everyone and paint the picture of how it affects the people that go here,” Vasquez said.
For updates on the tuition increase, the Tuition Talks campaign can be followed on Instagram at @TuitionTalksTFTI, Twitter at @ULVTuitionTalks and Facebook at ULV Tuition Talks-TFTI. To express concerns or share your stories email asulv@laverne.edu.
Brooke Grasso can be reached at brooke.grasso@laverne.edu.
