UT President: ‘People Might Not Like What We Do’ To Tighten University Budget

Updated March 6 to reflect new budget projections

The president of the University of Tennessee made a dire statement to the governor last month: Joe DiPietro said the business model of Tennessee’s public universities is “broken.” He pointed to low funding from the state and rising tuition costs for students.

In a recent interview with WPLN, DiPietro said he has learned that he couldn’t count on the state to give the university system the funding that he thinks it deserves.

“I’d come to Nashville, and I’d tell the legislature and all the elected officials all the great things we’ve accomplished at the University of Tennessee, and they’d say, ‘Attaboy, but you know, we have other issues that are a higher priority,’ ” DiPietro said. “And that meant we had to fix it ourselves.”

If the system doesn’t adjust its budget, DiPietro estimates it will have a funding gap of $377 million dollars over the next decade. That’s a much larger projection than his original estimate of $155 million.

“One alternative would be to say: Look, we’ve got to raise tuition, I’m sorry,’ ” he said.

But tuition at UT Knoxville has already doubled since 2006, and DiPietro said he is committed to keeping future tuition increases below 4 percent a year. “I’m worried about it becoming an access issue for middle class, working class families,” he said.

So that means the university has to find other ways to raise revenue or cut costs. 
This could include increasing class sizes or accepting more out-of-state students, who pay nearly triple the tuition of Tennessee residents.

”
We’re going to look at every line of our budget,” DiPietro said. “
People might not like what we do. If we
 end up taking more out-of-state students and a few Tennesseans
don’t get in, there could be some fallout from that.”

Other possibilities he gave: The university might start charging students for activities that are currently free. It’s looking into merging programs across campuses. It will be more aggressive with fundraising.

“I have no silver bullet, and we could fall on our face,” DiPietro said. “But the reality is, if we don’t do anything, we know that when I finish up in four or five or six years, the university will be worse off as opposed to better.”

DiPietro’s next step: He is presenting recommendations to the UT board at the end of February.