The intention with this post is to describe different
financial aspects that impacts undergraduate teaching. Everything written here
is based from my experiences and collected information from various sources
like reports and other teachers and then compiled by me. The main comparison
will be between UC Berkeley and University of Borås but some discussion will
also be made from a general Swedish perspective.
System at UC Berkeley
The university system was rather stable for a several
decades regarding funding (for teaching), student number and faculty in
Chemical engineering. The amount of money allocated from the state to each
separate campus within the University of California system (totally 10 campuses)
was previously calculated from Budget operations and Management using a
somewhat non-transparent formula (tillväxtanalys 2012). It is important to note
however that there seemed to be no correlation with the amount of students and
the allocated funds. More recently, this has changed and it has been agreed
upon that each student should have the same amount of state funding regardless
of which campus the students belong to. From 2011, it was decided that the
revenues to each separate campus (originating from student fees, patents etc.)
will stay at that campus and this will thus separate the actual amount of money
available for teaching at the different sites.
Somewhere around 2005, a change was started where more
students were expected and at the same time budget constrains were made so that
fewer faculty positions were available. Within this change also the student
fees increased and these are now about $ 15,000 for California residents and $
38,000 for other residents on a yearly basis.
Tuition fee at UC Berkeley 1994-2014 (data from Berkeley) |
One of the reasons for the change was a cut in state funding
(a large reduction was in 2011-2012 and in inflation-adjusted dollars the
amount of state financing has dropped with 60% between 1990-2012, Bienenstock
et al, 2012) while at the same time an increased social responsibility was made
(that means to give financial aid to students in specific groups such as
low-income or first college student in family etc.) and therefore the
university had to bring in more money. Looking at the numbers for student fees,
it is more attractive to bring in students from outside the state of
California. Due to the high interest in science and engineering from especially
Southeast Asia, these faculties have increased their number of students while
other departments have declining numbers. One of the success factors for UC Berkeley
is its ability to attract money from different sources including; governmental
funding, federal authorities, foundations and private donations.
Each year, the chair of the department negotiates about the
revenues from undergraduate teaching. This does not necessarily reflect the
amount of students in one particular year but should rather be seen as a
projected average and possibility to manage the load.
System at Swedish universities
The system used today was started with reform in 1993 and is
based upon a specific resource that follows with every student. There is a
limit of the number of students that are paid for in each educational area by
the UKÄ (Swedish higher education authority) and the payment is done by the
number of registered full time students and the actual achievements. Courses
have different resource allocation depending on education area (Prop
2013/2014:1, Expense area 16); in humanities, social studies, law and theology
the yearly allocation is 48,533 SEK in 2014 while media has an allocation of 531,660
SEK so the difference is dramatic and it is not very clear how to decide in
which educational area a specific course belong. For the technical education
area, the yearly allocation is 94,647 SEK ($ 13,145). Currently, a large
evaluation is being performed where each educational program is included (it is
a continuous process where different areas are considered every year). The
outcome of this evaluation is that some programs might have problems and must
show progress within one year otherwise they will be shut down. Another outcome
is that programs that are evaluated as the highest grade will receive an extra
allocation of funds from the government as a carrot to maintain and improve the
good standard. The amount could be substantial for a whole university if they
succeed to have many programs in the highest grade.
The general idea is that there are no tuition fees and the
reason is to give the same opportunities to all students regardless of their
economic status. Due to the fact that Sweden is a member of the European Union,
this will therefore be applied to all its member states (including the European
Economic Area and Switzerland). It
should be noted, that students from outside the EU are subjected to fees
decided by each university and currently the yearly fee for an engineering
master’s program is $ 18,100 at University of Borås and $19,400 at Chalmers.
Comparisons between
the two systems
We have two totally different systems for the undergraduate
level; one with tuition fee and one with full state financing. For the Berkeley system, not the whole cost
is associated with the fee, there are also other contributions where the state
is an important part as a base but donations are also given from foundations
and companies when for example new buildings are to be erected or new equipment
(laboratory equipment or computer rooms) are needed. It is interesting to see
however, that the amount of money from the tuition fee for the undergraduate
level at UC Berkeley is higher than the amount of money allocated by the
Swedish government ($15,000 for in-state students vs $13,000 for engineering
education in Sweden) and that the state of California is giving additional
funding.
The educational system at Berkeley do not directly reflect
the number of students in the class; as a professor you have the same time
allocated regardless if there are 15, 150 or 500 students in the class. What differs is the amount of extra help provided
in terms of GSI’s and student graders. This is highly apparent when lecturers
are hired for a single course and the offered amount of money does not reflect
the size of the class, it only reflects the number of lectures you have and the
amount of office hours.
From what I have seen, there is not something obvious from
educational point of view that motivates this higher cost at UC Berkeley. The
teachers are not paid significantly higher salaries and the lectures halls are
not more technically advanced nor have a higher standard regarding interior
(black boards, furnishing etc.). So why
is there a difference in cost for the two systems? One possibility is that
there is a substantial overhead cost in order to take care of the whole campus
area; there are many buildings (not only for education but there are for
example a number of sport arenas) and a
large campus. These need money to look after (utility, repairs, janitors, gardeners
etc.). The other possibility for the cost is the possibility for the university
to direct money into supporting systems (financial aid). This helps
high-performance students from low-income families to manage university education.
The system in Sweden is more transparent; each university gets
a commission to educate a certain number of students in various areas and this
is assigned with a predetermined amount of money. It is, however, up to each
and every of the universities to decide the internal allocation, which could be
quite different from the achieved money, as long as they fulfill their
commission. This means that there is a possibility to transfer money from one
area to another area on a short or long term basis depending on the interest of
that university; it could for example be to promote a special education or to
make short term initiatives.
What can we learn
from this?
Is teaching outcome (meaning student progress and
performance) depending on number of students in the class? For sure, it will be
a more intimate relation between teacher and student if the numbers are low. It
can with some validity be said that it is more likely that you can push (help) students
in the lower end better if they are just a few leading to higher percentage of
the class passing the course. This would of course be positive for the outcome
but the real question is if you really have helped the students in the long
run. They have a great responsibility for their own learning and they have to
show the ability of learning new things. In Sweden, we often use the ratio of
teacher versus student as an objective number to decide if the teaching is good
or not (it is more so a direct measure when you apply for a new program or new
degree rights that the ratio must be high enough). It is my firm belief that a more targeted teaching
can be done if the groups are small and that you can tailor-made the lectures
based upon the unique set of students and that this will help these individuals
to perform better not only for the course but also in the long run. However, it
is not rationale to do a one-to-one teaching (there is simply not enough money
or people in the system for this) and the student learns a lot when they
discuss among themselves.
A system where the university or the student decides the
enrollment can be difficult to master for the single department (course giver)
and demand some sort of negotiation to decide boundaries etc. This is
especially true for courses involving practical laboratory work; these are often
time consuming and the student needs hands-on experience to really understand
and learn (in some parts it is a crafts work). Larger classes without proper
allocation of new funds (especially equipment) and teachers this will lower the
impact of this specific element.
One has to see the driving forces beyond the economic
structure and the picture the scenarios, both good and bad. Starting with the Swedish
system; the system makes it highly transparent to follow the cost for the
education and connects the cost not only to enrollment but also to completed
courses. It is dependent on a higher national structure (government and the
minister of education) to decide the allotment of students in each area for
each university. This division is crucial for each university and is based upon
previous performance and attractiveness (number of applicants). A fear would of
course be to have an examiner for a course directly responsible for the money
coming in to that specific course and therefore tend to pass more students (the
money is not depending on how good the students pass the course, i.e. what
grade they have, but only if they pass or not). However, to my knowledge there is
no such structure at any university and instead the money is directed through
the system by schools or departments and often handled by a director of studies
(at Chalmers there is even a trading system regarding courses) and there are
always a quality insurance program run by the univeristy. What we can see
however is a willingness of letting the students be enrolled in the system until
they have passed the course which would prolong their time of studies but that
they finalize the course (program).
In the beginning when the whole amount of money was given on
student enrollment it was possible for universities to have base courses
offered as distant learning courses with more than 200 students enrolled but
only 20-30 were active. This led to a modification of the system so that about
half of the money is given after passing the course. Even so this has been
attractive. However, new ranking scores better emphasize of the ratio of
enrolled students and completed course works which leads to modifications in
especially the distant learning programs where the number of enrolled student
is not reported until they have finished the first home works.
The system at UC Berkeley with decision by the university campus
about the number of students and their major allows for a higher autonomous of
the university at the highest level but lower degrees of freedom further down
in the system. The departments have little influence and are totally in the hand of the board/leaders. The system are not
emphasizing the students as individuals but rather as a group and for the large
classes there is very little time for interaction between each student and the
teacher.
The tuition fee is a mean of
attractive more money to the university which in principle is used to maintain
a high standard for the education. At the same time it becomes a burden for the
students and the student’s family which has to pay for this. In a way, one can
say that using this system with financial aid means that students paying the
full fee are supporting the students who come from households with low-income.
Nobel and altruistic idea. Problem is who is excluded. If the selection of
student purely based on merits then it might be so but there are more to this
because it is encouragement of having underrepresented groups included (often
low-income but it could be race dependent etc.). On a larger scale, this might
still have a good and justifiable impact as it would level out the differences
between the groups in society and thereby minimize friction and spread the
wealth. On the individual level, this means that possible students with good
grades are sorted out and must apply for universities outside their state to
become the wanted group (out of state students yield more tuition).
As a conclusion, both systems have its merits and flaws.
However, it is apparent that the financial structure adds a lock-in effect and
has freedom at different levels. The UC Berkeley system allows for a higher
degree of freedom at university level, but a complication could be how this
relates to actual needs in the society (for chemical engineering there has been
a decline in available jobs but an increase in number of students). The Swedish
system gives the government a high power when it decides the allocation of
funds. It is important to stress that the universities are free to educate more
students than the given number but in that case they will not be funded for
these. However, apart from the overall allocation, the university is free to
decide how it will divide the funds. Each course will have its own budget that
is to a large extent dependent on the number of students but also on what type
of course it is and what elements that are included. For the UC system, the
governmental funding is only a part of the total revenues for the undergraduate
teaching and it will therefore mean less than in the Swedish system (especially
so nowadays when the funds have been dramatically reduced).
Disclaimer
I am fully aware of that I only have skimmed the surface
regarding financing of undergraduate education and that I sometimes made assumptions
but there is a substantial difference in how the financing system looks like
and what implications this might have for the whole system.
References
Bienenstock, A., Schwaag Serger, A., Benner, M. and Lidgard, A., “Combining
excellence in education, research and impact: inspiration from Stanford and
Berkeley and implications for Swedish universities”, SNS (Centre for business and policy studies), 2014
Prop 2013/2014:1, Expense area 16 p 220 http://www.regeringen.se/sb/d/17776
Tillväxtanalys “Hur
fördelas statsanslag till forskning och utbildning – en omvärldsanalys”, Dnr
2011/315, 2012