University Times

HARRISBURG — Should the University's state funding be tied to the number of hours Pitt faculty spend in the classroom? Members of the state House of Representatives appropriations committee said last week that they are considering such a plan as a possible replacement for, or supplement to, Pennsylvania's Tuition Challenge Grants Program.

The latter program rewards universities financially for holding tuition increases for full-time students from Pennsylvania to specific percentages. For the fiscal year that begins July 1, Gov. Tom Ridge has proposed that state-related universities such as Pitt, as well as state-owned schools, hold tuition hikes for full-time, in-state students to 4.5 percent to qualify for the challenge grant funding.

Pitt's administration and Board of Trustees are recommending a 3.5 percent increase here.

Assuming Pitt gets the tuition challenge grant money, its state appropriation would increase by just 1.5 percent next year under Ridge's proposed budget.

At an April 3 hearing of the House appropriations committee in Harrisburg, Chancellor J. Dennis O'Connor requested an additional 4.5 percent increase for Pitt, for a total base appropriation increase of 6 percent. Even with a 6 percent increase, the University will face a $3.5 million shortfall next year, O'Connor said. Without the additional 4.5 percent increase, Pitt's budget shortfall would be $8 million, he said.

O'Connor argued against a system that would link state funding to faculty productivity. He questioned how the state could develop a formula that encompasses all of the teaching, research and public service duties that Pitt faculty perform outside the classroom.

Even limiting the formula to teaching would have to take into account time spent preparing for classes, counseling students and working with students in laboratories, the chancellor said.

O'Connor also protested the Tuition Challenge Grants Program because it is limited to full-time enrollments and does not take into account the fact that graduate education generally is more expensive than undergraduate education, both to the student and to the university itself. Pitt enrolls a higher number of part-time and graduate students than most other state-funded universities in Pennsylvania. "This [challenge grants] program does not treat all universities equitably, nor does it recognize differences in institutional mission, programmatic cost or changing student demographics," O'Connor said. "As such, the Tuition Challenge Grant Program is not an acceptable substitute for an adequate investment in the base appropriation of Pennsylvania's public universities." Throughout the April 3 hearing, appropriations committee members questioned Pitt senior administrators about employee salaries, benefits and faculty workloads, inferring — and sometimes stating outright — that faculty are underworked and the University could do more to cut costs.

After O'Connor testified that Pitt faculty spend an average of 8 to 8.5 hours in the classroom per week, Rep. John Lawless, R-Montgomery County, asked why faculty couldn't increase that to 12 or 16 hours.

Provost James Maher said studies show that 12 hours is the maximum weekly classroom workload that faculty can handle "without seriously compromising their teaching and what parents expect from a university such as ours." Asked by Lawless whether he would support increasing Pitt's faculty classroom load to 12 hours, O'Connor replied: "I support being very effective in the delivery of instruction." Lawless noted that full-time students take 12 or more credit hours a week in addition to time spent in libraries and laboratories and holding down jobs. Lawless asked, "Should we not ask the same of faculty we're paying $73,000?" — the average salary for a Pitt full-time tenured professor, University officials told the committee.

O'Connor said, "I don't believe you can make a correlation between hours of instruction taken and hours of instruction given." Lawless criticized Pitt for offering its employees and their spouses and children what translates into a 90 percent discount on tuition. "You hurt the taxpayers of Pennsylvania when you give benefits like that to those in the top echelons of the salaries in Pennsylvania," he said.

But Provost Maher said the majority of Pitt employees who take advantage of the tuition discount are lower-paid staff, many of whom take jobs at the University specifically to earn degrees or enable their spouses and children to do so. As for higher-paid professors who use the tuition discount, Maher said, "If we did away with that benefit, we would have to pay higher salaries to recruit" new faculty.

In response to a question from Rep. Joseph Preston Jr., D-Allegheny County, Pitt administrators testified that 471 of the University's employees are paid $100,000 or more; 34 make $200,000 or more; five receive more than $300,000; and one employee is paid more than $400,000 (Senior Vice Chancellor for Health Sciences Thomas Detre, who plans to retire this year after 21 years at Pitt).

Pitt officials said they don't expect any significant impact on the University's budget or students if the General Assembly approves Gov. Ridge's recommendation for a 17.3 percent increase in grants to students through the Pennsylvania Higher Education Assistance Agency (PHEAA). Ridge's proposed larger-than-usual increase in grants would be "wonderful" for students throughout Pennsylvania but no substitute for increases in the universities' budgets, Maher said.

A recent telephone survey of hundreds of students who did not return to Pitt last fall found that a higher-than-expected number dropped out because they lacked the money to pay their tuition, the provost reported.

"We have sent a questionnaire to all of our non-returning students," Maher said. "At the moment, all we have are the results of the telephone survey, which are not statistically significant. But the answer that did happen more often than once [in the phone survey] is to have the student say, 'I'll be back as soon as I've saved up for the next semester's tuition." Maher said the questionnaire responses will be tabulated by May.

Pitt undergraduate tuition costs have increased 87 percent in the past decade, from $2,650 to $4,962, and administrators fear the University may risk pricing itself out of the market if that increase rate continues.

An unanticipated enrollment decline of 3.7 percent (840 full-time equivalent students) last fall is the main reason Pitt faces a $5.7 million shortfall in its $743 million current fiscal year operating budget, University officials said.

Rep. Anthony DeLuca, D-Allegheny County, cited U.S. Department of Labor projections of a growing need nationally for skilled workers but not necessarily for white collar workers with four-year college degrees. DeLuca noted that Pennsylvania will spend $1.5 billion on higher education this year but only $39 million on vocational and technical education. In view of those numbers, he asked O'Connor, is Pennsylvania "over-educating" students for jobs that won't be there when they graduate? Shouldn't the state spend more of its education dollars on vo-tech institutions and less on universities? "My answer, sir, is that there are multiple reasons for education," O'Connor replied. "There is not only the skills-acquisition aspect of education but there is the acquisition of a willingness and an understanding of life-long learning. And I think that what a college education should prepare someone for is not a job but for a series of jobs that they might have throughout their lifetime." DeLuca countered, "So it's my understanding that what you're saying now is, the primary concern of educating one's self should not be for the job that he is looking for in the future to support his family? Is that my understanding?" O'Connor replied, "I did not say that, sir. I said there are multiple reasons." The chancellor noted that he serves on the Business-Higher Education Forum, a group of leaders from businesses and colleges and universities. One of the forum's projects is to determine job skills that current and future workers will need. The project's findings should be available in 12-14 months, he said.

So the forum's report will be available to legislators planning the state's 1996-97 budget? DeLuca asked.

O'Connor elicited laughter from appropriations committee members when he answered, "Sir, when it's available I will hand-deliver it."

— Bruce Steele