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As noted in Appendix 4, the fundamental funding metric for UW Bothell and UW Tacoma is dollars per student FTE, where one undergraduate FTE is defined as 15 credit hours offered and one graduate FTE is defined as 10 credit hours offered. The numbers for the first year of the 1999-2001 biennium are $9432 per upper-division undergraduate FTE and $18,482 per graduate FTE. These numbers are based 1) on all campuses at UW and WSU, 2) on the net of state and tuition funded contributions and 3) upon the HECB's "instructional cost" calculation.
A) The cost estimates cited above arise from using only 011 (general instruction) budget information rather than a prorated mix of 011 and 012 (health sciences instruction). The latter seems appropriate given that some fraction of UW Bothell and UW Tacoma FTE's are provided in their nursing programs. The committee recommends to the Provost that this change in estimating be pursued.
B) Because the data from WSU Pullman and UW Seattle dominate the estimates (given their size relative to the five new campuses), the committee feels that the undergraduate upper-division number, $9,432/FTE, is low because UW Bothell and UW Tacoma are "two year" undergraduate institutions. Accordingly, as pointed out in Appendix 5, there are added workloads and, thus, added costs in two year institutions compared to similar campuses with a four-year program. The committee recommends that the Provost seek a change in the policy of determining dollars/FTE for upper-division undergraduate students at UW Bothell and UW Tacoma to reflect the added costs in serving "two-year" students rather than "four-year" students.
C) The final funding metric issue addressed by the committee has to do with the differences in the relative profiles of part-time and full-time students at UW Bothell and UW Tacoma on the one hand, and UW Seattle on the other. Because WSU Pullman and UW Seattle data dominate the model for estimating the cost per student FTE, that value, on average, is appropriately applied to another specific institution, e.g., UW Bothell, only if the latter institution has the same profile of part-time and full-time students as does the model (i.e., the same headcount/FTE ratio). The reasons, as pointed out in detail in Appendix 4, is that the greater the relative proportion of part-time students, the greater the cost of delivering educational opportunities.
Historically the extra need of resources when the head count to student FTE ratio is significantly greater than one has been recognized in the UW's tuition schedule. For example, a resident undergraduate registering for 5 credits for spring quarter 1999 paid $584/quarter or $116.80 per student credit hour, whereas one registering for 15 credits, i.e., a full-time student (one FTE), paid $1169 or $77.90 per student credit hour. The sense of these facts is clear: it takes more resources to serve three undergraduate students at 5 student credit hours each for one FTE delivered than it does to serve one student taking 15 student credit hours for one FTE delivered. Yet, UW Tacoma and UW Bothell do not receive any funds recognizing the added costs associated with serving larger relative numbers of part-time students than does UW Seattle. In fact, the extra dollars per credit hour paid by part-time students simply diminishes the amount of money provided by the state's general fund and does not defray costs incurred by UW Bothell and UW Tacoma whatsoever. Clearly this policy does not "square with" UW Bothell's and UW Tacoma's efforts to serve their place-bound, time-bound and work-bound clientele (i.e., part-time students), who were clearly anticipated by the legislature when UW Bothell and UW Tacoma were founded (Appendix 1A).
One way to document that there are significant profile differences between UW Seattle and UW Bothell is to compare the annual average student credit hour load in the 1998-1999 academic year for juniors, seniors and graduate students (kindly provided in the table below by Andrew Hummel, Senior Computer Specialist in the Office of Admissions and Records at the UW):
| Juniors1 | Seniors1 | Graduate Students2 | |
|---|---|---|---|
| UW Seattle | 13.6 sch | 13.1 sch | 10.6 sch |
| UW Bothell | 11.2 sch | 11.5 sch | 5.6 sch |
| UW Tacoma | 11.5 sch | 11.8 sch | 5.8 sch |
| Difference Between UWS & UWB | 2.4 sch | 1.6 sch | 5.0 sch |
| % by which UWB differs from UWS | 18% | 12% | 47% |
| Difference Between UWS & UWT | 2.1 sch | 1.3 sch | 4.8 sch |
| 5 by which UWT differs from UWS | 15% | 10% | 45% |
Clearly, UW Seattle has a significantly greater relative number of full-time students, a point that is most dramatically illustrated by the graduate category.
In summary, students who are not full-time pay more tuition and fees per student credit hour than do full-time students, and appropriately these added operating fees should provide added revenues to UW Bothell and UW Tacoma to adequately serve the part-timers. Thus, the committee finds that the model currently utilized to estimate costs in terms of dollars/FTE is weighted heavily toward the part-time/full-time student mix at WSU Pullman and UW Seattle. This model underestimates the costs of delivering quality education opportunities to students at UW Bothell and UW Tacoma. Although some relief is gained currently from per capita fees (application and technology), these simply do not mitigate the cost of all the demand related to headcount.
The committee recommends that the Provost seek a change in the funding metric in either of the two directions noted below:
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