Several members of the University of Minnesota's governing board voiced support for the proposal to charge business undergraduates $2,000 more than their classmates. They had questions, too. One student representative expressed concern that it would create a burden on families at a difficult time.
At a meeting Thursday, the interim dean of the Carlson School of Management, Sri Zaheer, described the reasons she believes the so-called tuition surcharge is necessary to maintain quality and compete with peer business schools.
She said that Carlson students get a "lot of private benefit" from their education, including a median starting salary of $50,500 in 2010. Carlson students are also less likely to borrow for their education than their U counterparts, she noted. Regents reviewed figures of massive growth in applications to the selective school.
In order to educate an expanding number of students, Zaheer hopes to hire 20 new faculty members, paid for through the $4.9 million in new revenue from the tuition surcharge.
She has proposed phasing that charge in over several years. By 2015-16, students would pay $2,000 more a year. That's on top of any additional tuition increases over that time.
Zaheer said that the need for faculty is acute. Carlson has 104 tenure or tenure-track faculty members for a total of 4,800 undergraduate and graduate students. Michigan, for example, has 148 tenure faculty for its 3,200 students, she said.
"I can say that we are more much efficient, we do better with less," Zaheer said. "But at the same time, we have outstanding students and they deserve the very best education we can provide."
Terrance Paape, a student representative to the board, said that $1,000 a semester is a huge figure for some students. He noted that in today's economy, student loan default rates are up and family incomes are down.
