Texas A&M President Robert M. Gates and three student members of his Tuition Policy Advisory Council (TPAC) described potential new tuition structures for A&M Jan. 31 at a public forum. While claiming to keep their options open, they clearly advocated a flat-tuition policy. Although such a policy could conceivably stabilize A&M's exponentially rising tuition rates and improve A&M's four-year graduation rate, its efficacy has not been demonstrated, and it ignores the needs of several groups of students, including science and engineering majors.
At the tuition forum, TPAC described two other potential tuition structures - differential and fixed tuition - but it recommended that A&M adopt a flat-tuition policy. The policy would only affect undergraduate students taking 12 or more hours, who would all pay the same amount of tuition, equivalent to the amount calculated for 15 hours. Undergraduate students taking 11 hours or less and graduate students would not be affected.
Their reasoning was clear: A flat tuition policy could add stability to the tuition structure and increase A&M's average course load, which is rather low at about 13 hours per student, each semester. An increased course load could then lead to an increased four-year graduation rate.
Before Gates and TPAC implement this policy, they should answer some tough questions about the inherent flaws in a tuition policy that lumps all students together, regardless of individual needs. Some students who work to pay for their tuition cannot afford to take more than 12 hours due to monetary reasons and a lack of available time. Sometimes, due to scheduling constraints and limited course availability, a student may not be able to take more than 12 hours. Others who enter A&M with Advanced Placement credit may wish to stay at A&M for four years, taking advantage of the opportunities available while taking a moderate course load, rather than being rushed through.
Science and engineering majors, who make up roughly one-third of A&M's undergraduate population, will also be shortchanged. They are limited in the number of courses they can take by time-consuming laboratory courses. These classes, for which students generally earn only one hour of course credit, meet for three hours per credit hour (as opposed to one for a normal lecture class) and often require as much or more time and effort than a standard three-hour class.
Few of these students could take advantage of the "free hours" (as Gates referred to them) above 15. Of course, these hours are hardly free, since they would be paid for by those unable to take the billed 15 hours.
Many science and engineering majors participate in undergraduate research, adding additional time constraints. A flat tuition policy would not be an incentive to participate in this worthy academic endeavor.
Despite this, students in the College of Science earn their degree in an average of 12 terms, one fewer than A&M's average of 13. It would be unfair to adversely target these students by flat tuition when they already graduate more quickly than the average A&M student.
Why would TPAC offer such a proposal, especially when Gates claimed that student input was a top priority? While it is a nice gesture that seven of the 15 members of TPAC are students, they are not a representative group. Rather than balancing the distribution of majors on the panel, a greater priority seems to have been placed on packing it with A&M's elite insiders.
None of the seven student members of TPAC are science majors. The council's one engineering major is a graduate student, who would not be affected by a flat tuition policy for undergraduates. Not surprisingly, TPAC appeared wholly unprepared when confronted with the interests of science and engineering majors at the tuition forum.
Flat tuition faces another major obstacle: proving itself. TPAC did not offer any clear evidence that a flat tuition policy would increase the average number of hours taken per semester. If the average number of hours does not increase, then the average student would be stuck paying for two extra hours, making flat tuition nothing more than a back door tuition increase.
Even if students do take more hours, course availability will decrease, making it even more difficult for students to take larger course loads.
Even the assumption that small course loads are the primary cause of the low graduation rate has not been verified. Other factors, such as students changing majors an average of about one time, are arguably as significant, or more so. A solution to these problems will require a more creative solution than a new tuition structure, but they should not be ignored.
Clearly, TPAC has much more work to do before formulating a final tuition policy. Hopefully the council will take into account the needs of science and engineering majors as well as other groups with special needs in the future. Will TPAC be up to this task, though, without representation from these groups?
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