Phone bills are too high. Janitors' salaries are too low. Not enough computers in the lab. Too much nickel and diming from Ballou. Everyone moans and groans about funds at Tufts but few people know how our tuition is spent and even fewer make an effort to find out. I decided to pry into the Tufts checkbook and see where my tuition is spent. What I learned is that despite all the bitching, Tufts is doing a better job than I realized, but we have a long way to go.
First, the good news: Tufts is run more efficiently than many of our competitors. Our endowment is much smaller than almost all the other universities with whom we compete. Yet given the small size of our endowment one would expect that our tuition would far exceed those of other universities. This, however, is not the case.
Tufts may be expensive, but it is a better value than schools that sit on a huge endowment and manage to charge their students a similar tuition to ours. Take Harvard, an exceptional but still suitable example. With an endowment of around $18 billion, Harvard should be charging far less tuition than Tufts, but it does not (other endowment figures are hard to come by as many schools are not open about them). In fact, Tufts' tuition has fallen from second among our competitors to sixth.
If the good news came as a surprise, the bad news is common knowledge. Tufts University does not have much money. Our current endowment is about $592,000,000. If you were looking to buy a cheeseburger, this would be a lot of money; but when the goal is providing an education to 8,000 students, it doesn't amount to much. To understand why Tufts needs $34,000 of your money, let me try and breakdown the process.
Make no mistake; Tufts University is a business. The goal is to produce the most educated students and newest research at the lowest cost possible. Ironically, the easiest way to understand the Tufts business is to think of Tufts as a country.
In the Republic of Tufts there is a federal government, the administration, which has a President, and rules over several dominions with separate budgets. Arts and Sciences, Medical, and Fletcher are among the dominions in the Republic of Tufts. These states earn revenue and they have expenditures.
The greatest source of income for the state of Arts and Sciences is tuition, which produces 66 percent of revenue. Sponsored programs - things like research funded by the government and federal student loans, account for another 10 percent of revenue. Sales and services account for another 16 percent. Together, they make up 91 percent of the state of Arts and Sciences' income. That is how we get money; the complaints are focused on how it is spent.
Over 86 million dollars is spent on instruction, academic support and student services. This is the stuff we care most about and it accounts for 40 percent of expenditures. The dining halls, dorms, health services and bookstore represent another 16 percent. The cost of maintaining the buildings for these services adds another 7 percent. The third largest expenditure is for student financial aid, 15 percent of costs.
To find the figures for this column, I spoke with Wayne Bouchard, Executive Administrative Dean for Finance, Budget, and Personnel. He has worked at Tufts for 20 years and he has trouble concealing a proud smile when he speaks of the progress Tufts has made, transforming from a quiet, local college, into one of the nation's finest universities. His smile, however, may mean little to the OneSource janitor who struggles to afford food for her children or the high school senior who receives a letter of rejection because his parents can't afford a Tufts education.
It is important, however, to realize that the administrators who design Tufts' budget are not sadists who get their kicks charging $10 for dinner in Dewick or setting dorm laundry machine costs at $1.25 a load. They face the difficult decisions in dividing a cake too small to satisfy the hungry hands of Tufts' students, faculty, and employees who plead, deservingly for more funds. Until the cake grows larger, painful priorities must be made.
Complaining is easy. Taking action is not. Until the cake that is Tufts' budget grows in size, little can be done to squelch complaints. President Bacow has said donors want to believe they are giving to a cause that will make a difference. In order to communicate how giving to Tufts will make a difference, we must define what sets Tufts apart from all the other institutions from which donors can choose.
The next time you're on the verge of losing control because of yet another fee, do something constructive. Drop President Bacow an e-mail explaining what you think distinguishes Tufts. Tell him how we can make Tufts a better place where more alumni will want to donate. Consider it a small step in increasing our endowment.
