Plans, programs & promises: think there's no way to help your students out of their college finance crunch? Think again - A University Business Special Section: Student Finance

University Business, July, 2003 by Jennifer Patterson Lorenzetti

But what about the specter of closed courses that haunts students and keeps some from graduating in a timely manner? "A major concern for students is that they can't get into required courses," concedes Caputo. But that's why Pace is also instituting the Pace Promise, he adds. Basically, the Promise states that a student who takes responsibility for planning his education will be able to finish in a timely manner. "If you get appropriate academic counseling and maintain good academic standing and declare a major by the beginning of sophomore year, you will graduate in four years," Caputo declares. (One proviso: For some majors, such as many of the hard sciences, completion of certain core courses during the freshman year is essential for graduation in four years, Students who declare or change majors after the beginning of the sophomore year are not guaranteed graduation with four years of study).

But, what happens to a student facing a closed required class? Pace will assist a student in registering for that class by adding extra seats in an existing class or opening another section to accommodate the overload, says the president. Further, a day student will not be forced to enroll in a night section, or vice versa, in order to take that needed course. What about a student who wants to change majors from literature to pre-med? As long as even this drastic change is made before sophomore year, the Promise is still in force, says Caputo.

Certainty, all of these promises place an increased burden on Pace to manage its resources effectively. Yet, departments are not receiving additional funding to hire more faculty or to pay overload stipends to fulfill the Pace Promise. "The charge to the academic dean is, 'This is something you must manage,'" says Caputo, adding that he hopes the plan will "teach a level of accountability" to the departments; he hopes that they will learn they cannot accept more majors than they can educate in a timely manner. And departments may need to make some tough decisions about faculty scheduling, such as not offering seldom-requested, smart-attendance courses. In that way, they can free up faculty for more high-demand classes.

Caputo insists that the university as a whole can no longer count on yearly across-the-board tuition increases to meet rising costs. "[This] forces us to plan very carefully," he explains. The university must learn to "meet future expenses strategically" through better long-range planning and budgeting, he maintains.

So far, students and families have greeted these plans with enthusiasm. "Everyone has been very appreciative that tuition will not change," Caputo says. After all, he adds, "We're taking the financial uncertainty out of education."