NATIONAL HARBOR, Md. – With growing government pressure to boost degree productivity and increased public resentment over tuition hikes, higher education leaders need to rethink funding schemes to meet new fiscal challenges.
That’s the advice that Washington State University president Elson Floyd shared Tuesday at the annual 2012 annual meeting of the National Association of College and University Business Officers, or NACUBO.
“We need to create a financial model where tuition increases can and must become more predictable,” Floyd said during a panel discussion titled “The Changing Financial Model of Public Universities.”
In addition to being more predictable, Floyd said, tuition should be stable, fair and affordable.
But due to decreased state appropriations for higher education, Floyd said, legislatures and governing bodies rely disproportionately on tuition, “and thus you have this volatility.”
Floyd, whose varied career as a university president has taken him to Western Michigan and Missouri before he arrived at Washington State University, presided over a significant tuition increase at his own institution earlier this year.
He attributed the increase to a 56-percent decrease in state appropriations over the past five years.
