University of Delaware raising tuition for select programs, hiring 500 new faculty

[TexasTowelie]

The University of Delaware announced Monday, the first day of spring semester, that it will begin charging business, engineering and nursing students $1,000 to $4,000 more than the institution's standard undergraduate tuition rate.

Administrators also want to hire 500 to 600 new faculty members in the next five to seven years. About 250 of the new hires would replace people as they retire. Many of the new hires will be "interdisciplinary" with experience in multiple fields.

UD's new tuition plan is called differential or tiered, with costs based on whether the student is in the Alfred Lerner College of Business and Economics, the College of Engineering or the School of Nursing.

The new charges will be phased in over time. All the colleges will start with a $1,000 increase in 2018-19, but by 2020-21, business students will pay an additional $2,500 per year, nursing students an additional $1,500 and engineering students $4,000.

Read more: https://www.delawareonline.com/story/news/education/2018/02/05/ud-raising-tuition-select-programs-hiring-500-new-faculty/306656002/

[exboyfil]

1. There is no cost justification for charging engineering students $4K more

We do this in Iowa as well (just not as much). Several of the majors in the Liberal Arts college are also more expensive (Physics, Chemistry, some Art and Design curriculum). It is even worse if you look at the external dollars the engineering school brings in.

When we first did this in Iowa, the statement was made it was because those students can afford it. They quickly scrubbed that justification. That is the real reason they are doing this.

You are not going to sell this to middle class parents who are squeezed in both directions.

[woodsprite]

2. The school used to use a centralized budge model, then switched to 'responsibility based budgeting'

where each college was responsible for it's own budgeting. Now with the new President, it's shifting back to centralized. I can make a guess why engineering and nursing is being done this way. I'm kinda puzzled by the business college. Engineering overspent it's rbb budget and went to administration to "find more money". Nursing is growing, reaching out to serve the public as a primary care center and making a huge move down to the old shuttered Chrysler plant in town.

Either way, I'll have to eat the additional cost. My son just applied to the engineering college as his first choice. His second choice was Hotel and Restaurant Management, which falls under the business college.

[exboyfil]

3. Good luck to your son

Even with the $4K additional engineering is still good value. I have found it to be a great career, and my daughter is doing good as well.

My other daughter is a nurse as it so happens. She went to a hospital affiliated private college that was pretty pricey, but she got to live at home.