Tuition for University of Minnesota graduate and professional students ranks in the middle to high range compared with the University of California-Berkeley, Penn State and other "peer" institutions. The price that in-state dentistry students pay tops the list. The average U medical student graduated with $137,268 in debt from that degree alone in 2008.
Those sticker-shock stats -- and the fact that few students pay sticker price -- are part of a complicated picture of the way nearly 20,000 graduate and professional students at the U fund their degrees.
The new data were presented to the U's Board of Regents Thursday.
Among the findings: The U provides more than double the support to graduate students that it does to undergrads, in the form of scholarships, fellowships and jobs. Many graduate students receive either aid or academic appointments from the U. Very few Ph.D. students pay even close to full tuition.
Graduate and professional students got support from a few regents in raising alarms earlier this year when undergrad tuition hikes were kept to a few percentage points, but theirs were not. Administrators promised numbers about how these students fund their degrees.
"The more I learn, the less I know, I think," said Regent John Frobenius after looking at the pricing, deductions and comparisons for graduate and professional programs.
Frobenius had expressed deep concern about tuition hikes for graduate and professional students last spring, and eventually voted against the budget when his motion to reduce the increases failed. He joined other regents Thursday in emphasizing how important it is that the university keep tuition for these students affordable and competitive -- yet high enough to maintain quality.
"The programs described in these documents are the unique mission of the University of Minnesota," he said. "If we don't do this superbly well, the state of Minnesota will suffer drastically."
