Courtesy of Justin Oates
Winthrop University raised its tuition for the 2019-2020 school year. The increase was slight, but it was still an increase. Winthrop University received an additional $2 million in recurring funds from the State of South Carolina. However, there are mandates that were required by the state that meant an increase in benefits for faculty and staff.
There was a two percent salary increase for employees that brought in under $100,000 per year. There was also a $600 bonus for people who make under $75,000 per year. These numbers played into the total amount of $2.8 million going to faculty and staff, salaries, health care programs and pensions, which was mandated by the state.
In order to break even, there was a campus-wide cut in expenses. The division of business and finance, led by Justin Oates, worked with every office and department on campus to create a better and more feasible budget that would best fit the interests of the students. This meant that for some offices there would be a cut in free WU gear. For example, in the Office of Admission there was a cut in ‘WU Swag’ such as cups, shirts and buttons. However, this was agreed upon by all parties involved.
Oates said that the “school’s main revenue sources (aside from state support) is tuition, since the state of [South Carolina] dropped funding higher education in 2008 following the recession and market crash.”
Oates went on to explain how exactly tuition is calculated.
“It’s a board decision, our tuition increased half a percent in tuition, two percent in room and three percent in board. One of the reasons why the board is higher than the other is because we have a contract with Sodexo. It obviously has some escalators involved in that as far as annually, the meal plans that we have to pay them for goes up. So it’s kind of like we pay them and we have to get more from the students to pay them. That’s one of the reasons it was the higher percentage.”
“The half of a percent in tuition actually has been one of the lowest…in many years at the institution. Usually, if you look historically, they do two to two-and-a-half percent raises. The reason we were able to keep it so low is because of the state recurring funding. They gave us more so we were able to keep the percent lower for our students. So the half of a percent was something we needed to balance the budget,” Oates said.
Since there was an increase in tuition, what got cut from the budget? According to Oates, “Well to be fair, as was mentioned before in the revenue, we have $2.8 million more that we have for compensation that we have to support–everybody on campus is likely taking a small operating deduction except for a few areas that we know we need to invest [in]. For example, our security, Title IX and a few others in that area.”
Fortunately, these weren’t across-the-board reductions. The division of business and finance talked to organizations, colleges, etc. to see where the reduction could occur without infringing on operation.
“It was a very collaborative process, so everybody was aware of where the reductions were occuring, and it was based on leadership decisions about where those reductions should occur.”
“This year we took a very exhaustive approach to make sure we understood where the people were spending money and that we could really ensure the folks that are growing have the resources that they need to be successful, and the areas where we may want to start spending less, and we addressed those through collaboration and conversation,” Oates said. “It was not a financial down approach. This was a very much process of including all divisions and academic units on campus.”
When asked if a tuition freeze is a realistic option, Oates said, “Definitely that was one of the recommendations that we made to the board which was zero to half a percent. So [we are] definitely having that conversation about where we want Winthrop to be compared with other state institutions, and right now, you may know that on sticker price–or face value–we’re the highest, but if you look at net tuition which includes finance, financial aid, room and board and everything, we’re [actually] in the middle of the pack.”
“Going forward, we will look at more of a long-term approach to tuition, so maybe not just setting them one year at a time, but maybe doing a multi-year freeze, but when you do a multi-year freeze, some of the things we talked about [were] course fees,” Oates said. “Looking at our course fees and maybe doing program fees instead of course fees so [students] don’t have to pay by the course. So it’s going to be incredibly important for my office and the new Provost, Adrienne McCormick’s, office for us to find a balance, and we’re excited to keep the conversation going.”
It is important to keep in mind that the more support the university gets from the state, the better likelihood of a tuition freeze. Until then the division of business and finance will continue to make an effort to keep tuition low.
