The Michigan Daily — michigandaily.com
News
Thursday, February 26, 2015 — 3A

unanimously agreed to increase 
this year’s tuition by 1.6 percent 
for in-state undergraduate stu-
dents and 3.4 percent for out-of-
state undergraduate students.

Before casting her vote, Regent 

Andrea Fischer Newman (R) 
asked if there was a point when 
the University could stop increas-
ing its price tag.

“It concerns me that many peo-

ple have asked for a higher appropri-
ation from the state every year, and 
the state is starting to respond, and 
I appreciate that,” Newman said. 
“But, I think we need to be respon-
sible stewards of that increase. So 
I wonder why we have to have an 
increase in tuition when the state is 
stepping up to the plate.”

University 
Provost 
Martha 

Pollack responded at the meeting, 
saying that though the University 
is invested in keeping costs low 
for students, it must raise revenue 
to continue hiring top faculty and 
updating campus infrastructure.

“We do work extremely hard … 

but we also really need to protect 
the excellence of the University,” 
Pollack said.

This year’s tuition increase fol-

lows the regents’ 2013 decision to 
bump tuition by 1.1 percent, the 
lowest hike in 29 years.

According to financial reports 

from Tim Slottow, the former 
University chief financial offi-
cer, the University’s tuition hikes 
have been among the lowest in the 
state and in the Big Ten over the 
past several years.

“Tuition and state appropria-

tions are the primary sources 
of funding for the University’s 
academic programs. There is a 
direct relationship between the 
growth or reduction in state sup-
port and the University’s ability 
to restrain tuition fee increases,” 
Slottow stated in the 2006 finan-
cial report, while still in the role 
of chief financial officer.

In response to the University’s 

effort to keep tuition percent 
changes low, Snyder awarded the 
campus an additional $1.1 million 
in state funding, the third-largest 
state grant in 2012.

Regardless of efforts in recent 

years, however, the University 
has increased its tuition by at least 
1 percent, and sometimes more, 
each year since 2002.

A decade ago, the Board of 

Regents approved a 12.3-percent 
hike in tuition for in-state stu-
dents and a 6.9-percent raise for 
out-of-state students — the largest 
percentage increase since the turn 
of the century at the University.

“This is unprecedented in the 

history of the University,” then-
Provost Paul Courant told the Daily.

Though 
each 
subsequent 

increase in tuition was 5 per-
centage points or less, overall 
the University’s base tuition for 
those enrolled in the College of Lit-
erature, Science and the Arts has 
increased 60 percent for in-state 
students and 55 percent for out-of-
state students from 2005 to 2014.

In an interview with the Daily, 

Cynthia 
Wilbanks, 
University 

vice president of government 
relations, said tuition rates have 
a direct relationship with state 
funding. Rising tuition, she said, 
can be explained by dwindling 
state funding.

Over the past decade, state 

appropriations to the University 
have declined by 40 percent on a 
per-student basis, when adjusted 
for inflation.

“I think the state had a much 

greater role in funding high-
er education prior to this last 
decade,” Wilbanks said.

According 
to 
information 

provided by the office of the 
University’s vice president for 
global communications and stra-

tegic initiatives, tuition rates vary 
somewhat between different col-
leges within the University, cred-
it-hour loads and class standing.

Tuition money goes to the 

general fund and helps pay for 
instruction, financial aid, advis-
ing and libraries. It does not pay 
for athletics, the health system, 
construction or housing.

In an interview last week, 

University Regent Denise Ilitch 
(D), who has voted against most 
tuition increases over her tenure 
on the board, said she believes it 
is extremely important to keep 
higher education affordable for 
all Michigan residents.

“I think that it’s extremely 

important that we make higher 
education accessible to our Mich-
igan residents and to make sure 
that it’s affordable to all, and not 
just people of means,” Ilitch said.

Though pleased at the slowing 

rate of tuition increases, Ilitch 
said there are many facets in 
keeping tuition down, including 
controlling costs and being more 
efficient when spending.

“I would love to see that, just 

one year, not to increase tuition,” 
she added.

Keeping the University 

affordable

As tuition costs go up, how-

ever, the University has explored 
affordability efforts in other 
areas. This year, the board also 
agreed to a $19.5 million increase 
in financial aid — part of a general 
trend of increasing financial aid 
faster than the rate of tuition.

“What (the increase) will allow 

us to do is ensure that students 
with need, as we have done in 
the last few years, will not see 
an increase in the cost of atten-
dance,” Pollack said in a 2013 
interview with the Daily.

This tuition increases occur 

as state-funded opportunities for 
financial aid have grown scarcer.

Along with decreasing fund-

ing for higher education, the state 
of Michigan has cut initiatives to 
help low- to middle-income stu-
dents pay for college such as the 
Michigan Promise Scholarship 
program in 2009, a merit-based 
scholarship for students with 
exceptional 
Michigan 
Educa-

tional Assessment Program, or 
MEAP, standardized test scores.

State Rep. Amanda Price (R–Hol-

land), chair of the state’s Education 
Committee, said cutting scholarships 
like the MEAP scholarship was, in 
some senses, unavoidable.

“I think that’s impacted some 

folks, I’m sure it has, even low- 
to middle-income students have 
been impacted by that cut,” Price 
said. “But that was driven by the 
budget realities that the state had 
been facing and continues to face.”

According to figures from the 

U.S. Department of Education, 
listed in the most recent Office of 
Budget Planning almanac, the aver-
age state grant has decreased by 
$2,608 per student. However, the 
University has increased the aver-
age need-based grant it provides to 
undergraduate students by $4,774 
through its own fund since 2002.

Though the University’s aver-

age state grant per need-based 
student is the second lowest 
among all public institutions in 
the Association of American Uni-
versities after MSU, it provides the 
second-highest amount of aid to 
students from its own resources at 
an average of $12,233 per student.

The number of need-based grants 

generally varies based on several fac-
tors, chiefly the income distribution 
among students at an institution.

Wilbanks said when it comes 

to deciding where to protect Uni-
versity funding while setting the 
budget and enacting cuts, aca-
demics and the student experi-
ence are a key focus.

“Here a very, very important 

decision was made that the aca-
demic quality of the institution 

had to be the number one prior-
ity, and in making it a number one 
priority you make decisions along 
the way to support your being able 
to invest in those high priorities — 
student experience, faculty excel-
lence and the overall academic 
excellence of the University,” Wil-
banks said.

In November 2013, partially 

in continuation of that push, the 
University launched the Victors 
for Michigan campaign — the 
largest fundraising drive for a 
public University in history.

The campaign, chaired by Ste-

phen Ross, set its goal to $4 bil-
lion, with $1 billion earmarked for 
financial support for students.

“We believe that by judiciously 

controlling our costs and tuition 
increases, while also committing 
University funds for financial aid, 
we can join with donors to make it 
possible for the best students, from 
any socioeconomic background, 
to afford to get a Michigan edu-
cation,” Newman, the University 
regent, said in a 2013 statement.

Changing student body
However, despite maintaining 

support for low-income students, 
the University student body has 
grown wealthier in recent years.

Since 2003, the number of 

University 
out-of-state 
under-

graduates who did not apply for 
financial aid or are from families 
making $150,000 or more annu-
ally has increased by 12 percent, 
according to the almanac.

In 2013, for both graduates and 

undergraduates, in-state students 
made up about 50.2 percent of the 
student body — 49.8 percent were 
either out-of-state or internation-
al students. This number of out-
of-state students has increased by 
7.2 percent since 2005.

In 
comparison, 
out-of-state 

students comprise around 10 
percent of Michigan State Uni-
versity’s student body, a school 
generally considered the Univer-
sity’s closest peer among public 
universities in the state.

Though the typical student 

with a family income at $80,000 or 
below pays less today to attend the 
University as they did in 2003, also 
according to the almanac, the num-
ber of those students is decreasing.

In contrast, the increase in 

non-resident students and their 
subsequent rise in tuition money 
amounted to an added $88 mil-
lion to the University’s general 
fund by 2013.

In an interview with The Mich-

igan Daily last week, E. Royster 
Harper, vice president for student 
life, said though low income stu-
dents are provided for from the 
school’s financial aid, students in 
the “middle,” socioeconomically, 
who don’t qualify for Pell Grants 
yet find the tuition too high, are 

still struggling financially.

“It really are the kids in the 

middle that get squeezed,” she 
said. 
“That’s 
where 
tuition 

becomes really critical.”

The University’s affordability 

efforts in comparison

Though the University has 

taken strides toward keeping col-
lege affordable for its students, it 
still falls behind in several key met-
rics, and in some cases, struggles 
to build a climate attractive to stu-
dents of low socioeconomic status.

According to Mark Burnham, 

vice president for governmen-
tal affairs at MSU, 54 percent of 
their students graduate without 
debt, compared to 46 percent of 
in-state University students. MSU 
is closest to the University in size, 
rank and athletics among public 
schools in the state.

The average amount of debt 

faced by students at MSU is 
$24,000. At the University of 
Michigan, that number is $25,575 
— a $1,575 difference — though 
it is worth noting that tuition at 
MSU is about $4,500 lower for in-
state freshman, and about $11,100 
lower for out-of-state freshmen.

Burnham said similar to the Uni-

versity, MSU has stayed affordable 
by increasing financial aid opportu-
nities for all students. He said MSU 
has increased financial aid by 45 
percent in the last five years.

“We certainly work very hard to 

make sure we have maximized finan-
cial aid as best we have,” he said.

Rachel Osmer, college adviser 

to Ypsilanti Community High 
School through the Michigan 
College Advising Corps, works 
primarily with students in Ypsi-
lanti who come from working- 
and middle-class backgrounds.

She said even though the Uni-

versity has a larger tuition sticker 
price, because of its endowment 
and large financial aid resources, 
many of Osmer’s students have 
the option of attending the school.

“Schools like U of M and 

MSU because they’re such large 
schools and such a large alumni 
network than newer schools, they 
have more money to offer from 
the school themselves than from 
the federal government,” she said.

However, Osmer said many of 

her students from low socioeco-
nomic backgrounds tend to apply 
to Central Michigan University, 
Eastern 
Michigan 
University, 

Western Michigan University or 
community colleges.

“For a lot of our students here 

in Ypsilanti, U of M, even though 
it’s right down the road, it’s still 
out of reach for them,” she said. 
“There is this stigma attached to 
the idea that U of M is an elitist, 
expensive school.”

Schools like CMU or EMU, she 

said, are more in her students’ 
comfort zones because other stu-
dents from similar backgrounds 
populate them.

“The people they see in that 

school are usually upper-middle-
class white men and women,” she 
said. “They’re not people that look 
like our students, so it’s not repre-
sentative of a school they would 
want to go to.”

Overall, Harper said state sup-

port is important, but doesn’t 
entirely address some of the socio-
economic issues students face.

“(Nothing) makes the cur-

rent price tag possible if you’re 
middle-class and out of state, so I 
think any support we get from the 
state is really important because 
it allows us to ask for less, but it 
won’t change sort of who comes to 
campus,” Harper said.

What an incredible honor.”

As the recipient of this year’s 

award, Strobbe will deliver the 
Golden Apple lecture on March 
31 at Rackham Auditorium. Each 
year, the winner is instructed to 
choose a lecture topic as if it is 
the last lecture he or she will ever 
give.

Business junior Jacob Berman, 

co-chair of the Golden Apple 
award committee, said there 
were 750 nominees since Jan. 
16, when this year’s nominations 
began, with well over 100 profes-
sors nominated.

“First of all, he got a ton of 

nominations,” 
Berman 
said, 

referring to Strobbe. “Clearly, he 

is someone who is beloved and 
just the way that so many stu-
dents said he has helped them 
personally, he is so inspiring in 
class and he’s helped them out 
of class, with what he’s done on 
campus. All that just made him 
such an obvious choice.”

Strobbe is the first director 

of the University’s Addiction 
Treatment Services, a clinic that 
provides treatment for those 
recovering from alcohol and 
drug addictions. In 2007, he was 
the recipient of the Administra-
tion Management Award by the 
International Nursing Society on 
Addictions for his work.

On his Nursing School web-

page, Strobbe notes that his main 
areas of academic interest are 
addiction, 
Alcoholics 
Anony-

mous, mental health and sub-

stance-use disorders, prevention, 
treatment and recovery, as well as 
spirituality.

After receiving the award, 

Strobbe informed his students 
that their scheduled midterm was 
still going to take place that day, 
though he admitted that this was 
the “best diversionary tactic” he 
had ever seen.

Nursing junior Kristina Bal-

lough, one of Strobbe’s students, 
said she nominated Strobbe.

“He is honestly the best teach-

er I’ve ever had,” she said. “He is 
just so passionate and enthusi-
astic about everything, and just 
makes it fun to learn and keeps 
your attention for a three-hour 
class, which is ridiculous. He 
does a great job.”

TUITION
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GOLDEN APPLE
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