As the University of Virginia’s colossal 11 percent tuition hike was up in lights last month, Longwood officials were able to come through for students a second straight year.
The current school year’s tuition was raised in historically low fashion last spring by a 2.1 percent mark, while it was followed up with a minimal 2.8 percent increase.
For in-state undergraduates carrying a full course load in 2015-16, tuition will be $11,910 per year—tuition and fees are the mandatory line items required to attend the university, not dining or housing. (The university did raise housing prices by 4 percent, while dining costs went up 2.5 percent.)
With the average increase in tuition from year to year in the commonwealth being around 7 percent, how exactly was the university able to keep the boost so low?
“There are a lot of variables,” said Ken Copeland, Longwood’s chief financial officer. “We looked long and hard at what we could do and tried to be as lean as we could, knowing that the trends show that our enrollment is moving in the right direction.”
Adding, “It will be one of the lowest, if not the lowest in the state.”
Copeland works in close contact with the president and the “academy” or academic departments on-campus to see what’s feasible before moving forward.
Then he and the administration put a tuition and fees proposal in front of the Longwood Board of Visitors and get it approved. Once that’s done, they use that number to prepare the next year’s operating plan.
Copeland said bolstering enrollment among other things have played significantly into the schools ability to keep tuition down.
Because of the recent increase in enrollment, the school brings in more money and has the capability to minimize an increase in fees.
“Three years in a row we’ve brought in around 1100 kids,” Copeland said. “The class about to graduate is the smallest freshman class in the last four years. We’re anticipating the next class to be of the 1100 student ilk. We grow enrollment right there.”
He added, “If we have more students, we are collecting smaller incremental tuition, but we’re collecting from more people. We are trying to build this budget on scale, and not just on the backs of students.”
According to Copeland, an increase in student retention percentage over the past few years has also helped enrollment numbers, and in essence, helped keep fees low.
“We are keeping more students than we once did. Our retention rates are moving into the eighties. There was a time when our rates were in the 77-79 percent range. We are seeing fewer of those students not come back. We’d like to see it get to the mid to high eighties, it’s in the low eighties now,” Copeland said.
Another factor could be faculty and administrative salaries on-campus. Longwood has some of the lowest payrolls in the state, which possibly plays into the schools ability to keep prices low.
“I’m not saying this, but you could certainly argue as an independent third party reviewer of these (tuition) facts that Longwood’s got low salaries because they have low tuition increases,” said Copeland. “That we are more about trying to help students manage debt…that’s not what I’m saying, but you could make that argument.”
According to a report released and based on the 2013-14 school year, Longwood has the lowest average salary in the state of Virginia of reporting schools, and the second lowest compared to like universities based on SCHEV groupings.
But Copeland said viewers of that data might want to take it with a grain of salt.
“We are different than any other state school in Virginia,” said Copeland. “We are small, and liberal arts and we make no apology for that. Some of the schools we are compared to have medical schools, engineering schools and architecture schools.”
Headded, “Do I wish our salaries were higher? Yes, no question. Are we making progress? Yes, we are. But Rome wasn’t built in a day.”
The university had a study done and published in 2012 that focused on annual compensation. The study showed Longwood was 3.3 million dollars in base annual compensation below the mid-point of the market for all classifications.
“We have internally funded three salary adjustments since 2012, and we needed to do it because we are behind,” said Copeland. “Are we there yet? No. There is nothing we are more dedicated to.”
When asked if drastically raising tuition would be Longwood’s sword against low salaries, Copeland said he doesn’t see that happening. “Tuition could possibly be the answer,” he said. “But we have made a great effort to hold tuition down the past two years. How disingenuous would it look if we raised it astronomically next year?”
Copeland said the university’s goal each year is to make tuition affordable. “These dollars are important to people,” he said of Longwood families. “And our goal is to do our best every time to keep them low.”
