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Growing Pains
Desiree Palacio feels she got to the University of Texas at San Antonio at just the right time. In 2001-02 she could easily get the classes she needed, the professors she wanted and the access to technology to help her earn her teacher's certificate.
Today is a different story.
"I was able to adjust slowly to the campus environment," Palacio says. "Students coming in now, with the wave of increased enrollment, might have more difficulty."
Enrollment has been steadily increasing at UTSA. Over the next academic year, UTSA projects a 5.4 percent increase in enrollment, which would mean 27,600 students on campus. And, it's not just UTSA that's setting high enrollment records. All across the UT System's nine academic campuses, more students are going to college. Between 2000 and 2004, UT System's rate of enrollment growth outpaced the state's average rate by 25 percent. That growth is projected to remain steady in the coming academic year.
"In general, UT schools educate one-third of the state's college-going students. Last fall, though, that changed. Now UT System universities are educating half of all the new enrollees in public universities," said Dr. Teresa Sullivan, executive vice chancellor for academic affairs for the UT System. "We're literally busting at the seams."
In an effort to keep up with the additional students, UT System campuses have used their ability to set tuition rates based on the needs of each campus. During the 78th Legislative Session in 2003, lawmakers granted that flexibility to all Texas public higher education institutions. Almost every UT academic institution needed to raise tuition to some degree to offset state funding that has been flat in the past two biennia.
"Between 2002-03 and 2004-05, per-student funding decreased 16.7 percent across the nine academic campuses," stated Mark G. Yudof, UT System chancellor. "Factoring in tuition flexibility helps the problem but does not fully cover the shortfall." Add in inflation at 3.7 percent, he says, and the problem is exacerbated.
So campuses such as UTSA are being prudent and creative in deciding how to use the tuition-generated dollars. Each attempts to ensure students' access to courses and to put professors in place to teach. UTSA will experiment with UT Telecampus to offer a hybrid course in which students would meet twice a week and meet the third time online. Classroom space would then be opened up once a week, allowing additional use.
At UT Austin, enrollment is capped at 50,000 students to control the size of the university. To meet student's needs, chemistry labs at Austin are open as late as 11 p.m. And UT Tyler has added Friday afternoon and Saturday morning classes at a discounted rate to encourage students to attend in off-peak hours.
What is the one link to the success of these alternatives? Desiree Palacio thinks it's the teachers. The majority of the revenue generated from tuition increases has gone to recruiting and hiring the most competitive professors in their fields. More than 450 new faculty will be hired System-wide during the 2004-05 academic year.
For recent UT Brownsville graduate Norma Woodard, her education was only as good as her professors. "My classes have taught me the things I needed for my field by updating me on business lingo, ethics and information technology. We were not babied and that's what it's all about -- making the grade because you earned it." Woodard earned her bachelor of arts in applied sciences.
Those teachers hired with solid experience, Palacio says, made her education so valuable. "The majority of education teachers (at UTSA) were elementary teachers before and then came back for the doctorate or master's. I feel they are well informed and really educated me. They were very passionate about education," she said.
But more faculty are still needed. "Our biggest limitation is new faculty," says Dr. Sullivan. Without them, it is nearly impossible to add classes, do research and keep pace with a growing Texas.
The Closing the Gaps initiative which was mandated in 2000 by the Texas Higher Education Coordinating Board requires public universities in Texas to absorb 600,000 new students by 2015. UT System supports the initiative and understands it must absorb a large faction of those new students.
Becky Bromley is a senior political science major at UTSA. She's interested in writing public policy, lobbying or, one day, running for office. As a student with a valuable degree nearly in hand, Bromley says it's important to get more people into college."Without it (higher education) you can't go anywhere. It hurts our country," she said.
Bromley also says politics needs to play a more critical role in public higher education. "It's important to close the gaps, but we're going to need support from our state legislature," the Austinite said. "UT Austin is capped out. UTSA has lots of room to grow, land around us, we could take on that burden if we get support."
UT schools are focused on the future and right now that means managing growth well. Growth that continues to stretch campuses to its limits, forces presidents to consider difficult financial options and puts a call out to qualified teachers around the country and the world. Even with the challenging realities factored in, UT System institutions are growing and changing and improving every day.
"I don't think I could have gone to anyplace more receptive than UT Brownsville," said Gabriel Ezeh, who recently received his master in education counseling and guidance. "I met with professors here and I really received the personal touch. I discovered that the counseling program was just what I was looking for."
And, according to the students, their UT education is making a transformational change in their lives.
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