Arizona State University

Arizona universities propose tuition hikes

Arizona’s three state universities released proposals to increase tuition for the 2009-10 school year Thursday.
Arizona State University proposes its typical 5 percent hike, which was approved by the Arizona Board of Regents in 2007. The board’s action limits increases for returning in-state undergraduate students to 5 percent each year for up to five years after enrollment. New in-state undergraduate students will be subject to the same 5 percent increase cap for up to four years.
With that 5 percent increase, continuing in-state students in the second year of their guarantee will pay $5,316 at the Tempe and Downtown Phoenix campuses and $5,093 at the Polytechnic and West campuses. Those entering the first year of their guarantee will pay $5,679 on all campuses.
New in-state undergraduate students will pay $5,997, while in-state graduate students will be at $7,128. Out-of-state undergraduate and graduate student tuition also will increase by 5 percent to $18,582 and $20,322, respectively.
President John Haeger said 40 percent of NAU students will be exempt from his proposal to increase tuition and fees by 6.5 percent for resident students. Those not impacted by the increase are part of NAU’s Pledge program, which guarantees the same tuition for four years for new freshmen and transfer students.
Tuition and fees would be $5,648 in 2009-10 for Pledge participants on the Flagstaff campus. He also recommended setting the four-year Pledge tuition for new 2009-10 resident students at $6,153. The only increases they would see would be in required fees.
Haeger also recommends a 6.5 percent increase for resident graduate students on the Flagstaff campus. Their combined tuition and fees would be $6,067.
Because non-resident undergraduate and graduate students at the Flagstaff campus already pay more than residents, Haeger said he plans to increase their costs by only $400. As a result, non-resident undergraduates would pay $16,057 in tuition and fees and non-resident graduate students would pay $16,482.
The University of Arizona in Tucson, which welcomed the largest freshman class in its history, proposes a $659 increase in resident undergraduate tuition at its main campus. At its UA South campus, the proposed increase is $450.
Non-resident undergraduate tuition at both its main campus and UA South campus would see a $2,575 increase. Resident graduate students at both campuses would see a $659 hike, while non-resident graduates at both campuses would get a $2,575 boost.
In addition to these increases, special colleges are planning their own hikes. For example, The Eller College of Management seeks a $4,000 increase to the fee for its Executive MBA Program. If approved, the program would have a full cost of $54,000.
UA President Robert Shelton recommends setting aside 15 percent of tuition revenue for financial aid. UA is offering a financial aid package called Arizona Assurance, which offers four years of debt-free education to any Arizona resident whose family income is $42,400 or less.
ASU officials said students and parents should not be deterred by tuition increases. This year, ASU will award more than $100 million in scholarships and grants. In addition, Arizona residents whose family income is $25,000 or less can qualify for the school’s Advantage program.
The Arizona Regents will conduct hearings to give the public a chance to have a say on the tuition increases on Nov. 17 from 5 p.m. to 7 p.m. throughout the state. In the Phoenix area, those hearings will be at ASU’s Carson Ballroom in Tempe; University Center, LaSala C at its West campus; room 147 of the Academic Center at its Polytechnic campus; and in room 107 of the University Center at its Downtown campus.

US universities

Why US universities are wealthy while Israel's are broke

Writing in Haaretz last month, Prof. Eli Podeh of Hebrew University aptly summarized the root of the university funding crisis in three words: "Nobody really cares." He even correctly attributed this apathy to Israelis' "negative view of academe." Yet rather than acknowledging the universities' own responsibility for this attitude, he blamed it on the population's obsession with "reality television and the pursuit of money" - a theory that unfortunately fails to explain why Americans, equally obsessed with reality television and making money, nevertheless boast the world's best and wealthiest universities.

Students hold a "tutorial" session with a junior lecturer outside of the gates of the Ben Gurion University during last year's strike.Photo: Dani Machlis
When comparing the Israeli and American systems, two facts immediately stand out. First, while our universities are state-funded, America's best and wealthiest universities are private. Second, annual tuition at top American schools is about 15 times the NIS 8,600 here.
These differences are not coincidental. In societies where money is considered a measure of value, American tuition proclaims higher education valuable, while local tuition labels it virtually worthless. Moreover, while our system makes higher education another state-funded entitlement, America's private system makes it a privilege.
Top American schools are therefore attractive to funders, who like the idea of enabling deserving students to obtain a valuable but otherwise unaffordable education. Moreover, since high tuition means that a majority of students receive financial aid, alumni feel obligated to help others as they were helped.
This country's universities, however, face strong disincentives to giving: Private donors object to funding a government entitlement; most alumni paid "full" tuition, and therefore feel no obligation to help others; and the product, as indicated by its price, is worthless anyway - a point that also argues against generous government funding.
And since, as last week's column explained, all Western universities must increase their non-state funding to survive, these disincentives put our schools at a serious disadvantage. Hence the importance of raising tuition, as the Shochat Committee recommended last year. In addition to increasing the universities' revenues in itself, it would encourage private donations by sending the signals necessary to attract them - that higher education is valuable, that it is not a government entitlement for which civil society bears no responsibility and that many deserving students cannot afford it without help.


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YET FOR all the importance of this issue, another American-Israeli difference that is less immediately obvious may be even more important. Prof. Israel Bartal, Hebrew University's dean of the humanities, enunciated this difference in the Los Angeles-based Jewish Journal last February, when he declared that "trying to shape a generation of Jewish leaders" is "beyond our scope." Substitute the appropriate nationality, and that statement would appall most leading non-Israeli schools.
England's Oxford and Cambridge, France's grande ecoles, America's Harvard, Yale and Princeton - all view producing future leaders as part of their job. That is why France has a grande ecole devoted exclusively to public administration, why Harvard's Kennedy School of Government or Princeton's Woodrow Wilson School of Public and International Affairs rank among their respective universities' most prestigious departments, why a school like Princeton unabashedly boasts of "Princeton in the nation's service."
It is also why American scholars easily move between academia and government - people like Larry Summers (who left Harvard for government service, ultimately became secretary of the treasury, then returned as Harvard's president), Henry Kissinger (who left Harvard to become national security adviser and secretary of state, then returned to Georgetown University) or Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice (a former Stanford provost). In Israel, such transitions are exceedingly rare.
The point is not that Israel needs more academics in politics; rather, it is the attitude this trend reflects. While American (or British or French) universities feel a responsibility to give back to the communities that produced them, our universities acknowledge no such responsibility. They view their job strictly as churning out experts in particular academic fields. But if universities feel no obligation toward society, why should society feel any obligation toward them?
OUR UNIVERSITIES do not even feel obliged to produce well-rounded citizens with a broad base of knowledge. Except at Bar-Ilan, where students must take some Jewish studies courses, there are no distribution requirements. Thus science majors can graduate without ever taking a humanities or social science course, while humanities majors can graduate without studying any natural or social science.
The result, as Nobel laureate in chemistry Prof. Aharon Ciechanover lamented in Yediot Aharonot two years ago, is that "even among people with academic degrees, I find garbled language, a lack of cultural depth and ignorance of general history and the history of the Jewish people. We need institutions of higher learning headed by path-breaking leadership, but that kind of leadership has disappeared."
Added to all this is rampant academic post-Zionism. Consider some examples: Two lecturers at Ben-Gurion University and its affiliate, Sapir College, refused to teach IDF reservists in uniform; many of their fellows supported them. A University of Haifa master's student received top marks for a thesis accusing IDF soldiers of massacring Arabs during the War of Independence, yet the veterans later won a libel suit by proving gross fabrications of the evidence. A Tel Aviv University professor published a book asserting that there is no Jewish people. A Ben-Gurion lecturer described his university, located well within pre-1967 Israel, as being in "Palestinian territory." Sociology professors awarded a prize to a Hebrew University graduate student for a paper claiming that IDF soldiers rarely rape Palestinian women because they view Palestinians as subhuman.

US universities

Why US universities are wealthy while Israel's are broke

Writing in Haaretz last month, Prof. Eli Podeh of Hebrew University aptly summarized the root of the university funding crisis in three words: "Nobody really cares." He even correctly attributed this apathy to Israelis' "negative view of academe." Yet rather than acknowledging the universities' own responsibility for this attitude, he blamed it on the population's obsession with "reality television and the pursuit of money" - a theory that unfortunately fails to explain why Americans, equally obsessed with reality television and making money, nevertheless boast the world's best and wealthiest universities.

Students hold a "tutorial" session with a junior lecturer outside of the gates of the Ben Gurion University during last year's strike.Photo: Dani Machlis
When comparing the Israeli and American systems, two facts immediately stand out. First, while our universities are state-funded, America's best and wealthiest universities are private. Second, annual tuition at top American schools is about 15 times the NIS 8,600 here.
These differences are not coincidental. In societies where money is considered a measure of value, American tuition proclaims higher education valuable, while local tuition labels it virtually worthless. Moreover, while our system makes higher education another state-funded entitlement, America's private system makes it a privilege.
Top American schools are therefore attractive to funders, who like the idea of enabling deserving students to obtain a valuable but otherwise unaffordable education. Moreover, since high tuition means that a majority of students receive financial aid, alumni feel obligated to help others as they were helped.
This country's universities, however, face strong disincentives to giving: Private donors object to funding a government entitlement; most alumni paid "full" tuition, and therefore feel no obligation to help others; and the product, as indicated by its price, is worthless anyway - a point that also argues against generous government funding.
And since, as last week's column explained, all Western universities must increase their non-state funding to survive, these disincentives put our schools at a serious disadvantage. Hence the importance of raising tuition, as the Shochat Committee recommended last year. In addition to increasing the universities' revenues in itself, it would encourage private donations by sending the signals necessary to attract them - that higher education is valuable, that it is not a government entitlement for which civil society bears no responsibility and that many deserving students cannot afford it without help.


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var adsonar_ps=10912223;
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YET FOR all the importance of this issue, another American-Israeli difference that is less immediately obvious may be even more important. Prof. Israel Bartal, Hebrew University's dean of the humanities, enunciated this difference in the Los Angeles-based Jewish Journal last February, when he declared that "trying to shape a generation of Jewish leaders" is "beyond our scope." Substitute the appropriate nationality, and that statement would appall most leading non-Israeli schools.
England's Oxford and Cambridge, France's grande ecoles, America's Harvard, Yale and Princeton - all view producing future leaders as part of their job. That is why France has a grande ecole devoted exclusively to public administration, why Harvard's Kennedy School of Government or Princeton's Woodrow Wilson School of Public and International Affairs rank among their respective universities' most prestigious departments, why a school like Princeton unabashedly boasts of "Princeton in the nation's service."
It is also why American scholars easily move between academia and government - people like Larry Summers (who left Harvard for government service, ultimately became secretary of the treasury, then returned as Harvard's president), Henry Kissinger (who left Harvard to become national security adviser and secretary of state, then returned to Georgetown University) or Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice (a former Stanford provost). In Israel, such transitions are exceedingly rare.
The point is not that Israel needs more academics in politics; rather, it is the attitude this trend reflects. While American (or British or French) universities feel a responsibility to give back to the communities that produced them, our universities acknowledge no such responsibility. They view their job strictly as churning out experts in particular academic fields. But if universities feel no obligation toward society, why should society feel any obligation toward them?
OUR UNIVERSITIES do not even feel obliged to produce well-rounded citizens with a broad base of knowledge. Except at Bar-Ilan, where students must take some Jewish studies courses, there are no distribution requirements. Thus science majors can graduate without ever taking a humanities or social science course, while humanities majors can graduate without studying any natural or social science.
The result, as Nobel laureate in chemistry Prof. Aharon Ciechanover lamented in Yediot Aharonot two years ago, is that "even among people with academic degrees, I find garbled language, a lack of cultural depth and ignorance of general history and the history of the Jewish people. We need institutions of higher learning headed by path-breaking leadership, but that kind of leadership has disappeared."
Added to all this is rampant academic post-Zionism. Consider some examples: Two lecturers at Ben-Gurion University and its affiliate, Sapir College, refused to teach IDF reservists in uniform; many of their fellows supported them. A University of Haifa master's student received top marks for a thesis accusing IDF soldiers of massacring Arabs during the War of Independence, yet the veterans later won a libel suit by proving gross fabrications of the evidence. A Tel Aviv University professor published a book asserting that there is no Jewish people. A Ben-Gurion lecturer described his university, located well within pre-1967 Israel, as being in "Palestinian territory." Sociology professors awarded a prize to a Hebrew University graduate student for a paper claiming that IDF soldiers rarely rape Palestinian women because they view Palestinians as subhuman.