The University of Connecticut Board of Trustees unanimously approved a new 10-year strategic plan for the university on Dec. 6, 2023, according to UConn Today. The plan is in service of three goals: “promoting holistic student success,” “expanding research impact” and “powering a thriving Connecticut.”
Progress on the plan, headed by the Strategic Planning Steering Committee and containing four working groups concerning student success, research, local impact and implementation, will be measured against four Key Performance Indicators. As The Daily Campus Editorial Board previously discussed, these will include achieving a six-year graduation rate of 90%, obtaining $500 million in research funding, increasing the size of the university endowment to $1 billion and reaching carbon neutrality by 2030.
Although the plan sets its sights on ambitious long-term goals, the implications of achieving them could not be more relevant to the lives of UConn students today. This is especially true of the first goal of increasing the rate at which students complete their degrees. In order to support each student’s “success journey,” the plan incorporates a strategy to “facilitate an enriching student learning experience and timely and equitable academic progression for all students… from when they first arrive until they graduate.” The “priority actions” in this vein include increasing student engagement with extra-curriculars, increasing financial literacy and students’ ability to “financially navigate” UConn, improving career readiness and bolstering students’ learning through teaching, experiential opportunities and other support systems.
These methods, however vague, nonetheless provide a statement of intent to make sure students have what they need to see their undergraduate and graduate careers through to completion. At the same time, UConn must do its part to combat decreasing college affordability in order to meet these goals that extend beyond financial aid.
Economic factors are integral to understanding college graduation rates. Statistically, students from low-income backgrounds are eight times less likely to graduate than high-income students, in no small part due to the high cost of tuition and insufficient grants and scholarships. Further, students who work full time, independent students (which includes people who are married, military veterans, over the age of 24 or otherwise not supported by a parent), part-time students and students who live off campus are all far less likely to complete their degree within six years than their counterparts.
Each category above is extra vulnerable to tuition increases. Students working more than 12 hours per week to support their education, for example, will have their work and curricular balance further disrupted if they need to earn more to afford school. The number of students who live off campus because they cannot afford on-campus housing will only increase as the cost of living on campus increases as well.
With cost being such an integral component of graduation rates, the Editorial Board holds that UConn needs to find ways to put its money where its mouth is. In some respects, the university is on the right track. Between fiscal years 2024 and 2025, UConn’s expenditures on financial aid are expected to grow by nearly 10%, outpacing current levels of inflation significantly. However, on a longer scale, the total amount distributed in financial aid increased only 6.9% between 2021 and 2023, while the number of students receiving aid increased by 14.5%.
While it may appear that more students receiving financial aid may be a positive thing, it is not sustainable for a growing student population to put a strain on the university’s financial resources. This would result in a greater number of students who receive insufficient aid by grants or loans (not even accounting for the median-income students who fall through the cracks altogether). The solution is not financial aid, but to increase affordability for all students.
At the same time, the Editorial Board is not short-sighted enough to think that the administration can snap its fingers and reduce the cost of attending UConn — however, it’s certainly not blameless. We fully understand that greater state and federal support is needed to make higher education accessible to all, if not broader system change that places human welfare over wars and tax cuts for the wealthy altogether.