Here’s a good reason for UConn students and parents to rejoice over the $4 million infusion to the school’s engineering department: They won’t have to pay it.
The unique partnership between the school and private industry announced last week to help attract sought-after engineering professors means students in that department won’t be asked to pay a premium over and above their tuition — a practice becoming increasingly common at public university systems across the country.
It’s called “differential tuition,” the practice of charging higher tuition rates to students in programs like engineering and business, where top notch professors — like those now sought by UConn — are increasingly harder to find. The assumption is that those who remain in academia could presumably earn far more in private industry, meaning they demand higher salaries than professors in other fields. It’s most commonly found in schools of engineering and business.
Neither the University of Connecticut nor the Connecticut State University system charge differential tuition, although some graduate programs — such the schools of law and medicine — charge higher tuitions.
Midwestern Phenomenon
But state university systems in states such as Nebraska, Wisconsin and Kansas, differential tuition fees can range as high as $500 per credit.
Another university system where differential tuition is already charged: The University of Iowa, where new UConn President Michael J. Hogan most recently served as the top academic officer.
“It’s an avenue that many other schools are exploring, but I’m reluctant to say there should be anything like that at UConn,” Hogan said.
Hogan stopped short of saying that the state’s flagship public university could consider charging differential tuition down the road.
“I’m not afraid to have that discussion though,” Hogan added. “There certainly is a market for higher education, and many college graduates will earn $1 million more over there lifetime, so asking for $100 a credit may be not a big a deal in the long run. If you pay a little more now you get a little bit better product.”
At least some students would agree with that.
Ryan McHardy, a 24-year-old senior with a minor in a business, said he personally would not mind paying a few extra dollars for a class if it guaranteed a better professor in the room.
Students Receptive
“I think you would find a lot of varied opinions about it though,” McHardy said. “Each student would really have to do a cost-benefit analysis when they go into a program and see if it works for them.”
McHardy, an Arkansas native and president of the student body, said the UConn business school in particular has benefitted from similar partnerships as the engineering school. He praised the General Electric-funded Edgelab, where business students work on real-world consulting projects, as a good innovation, one that has helped give graduates an edge after they leave.
Jessica Mortell, a senior civil engineering student, said nominal fees would probably be acceptable to most students. Mortell said her sister, an engineering student at Western New England College in Springfield, Mass., already pays a premium to study in the engineering department.
If that trend would improve the quality of the faculty, it seems a small price to pay, she said, though both students felt the quality of instruction in their classes at UConn has been quite high.
“A few hundred dollars wouldn’t make that much difference in the long run,” she said. “As long as the school clearly communicates why it would be done, I don’t think it would be a problem.”
