Why tuition should not be deregulated
UT officials argue that tuition must be deregulated so that they can increase the cost of attending UT in order to match peer institutions, such as UC-Berkeley and UW-Madison. This way, the quality of education at UT will match the demands of the marketplace, they argue. However, this graph shows that by their logic, tuition should actually be DECREASED at UT-Austin.
Top-ranked Public Universities and the Cost of Attendance (2002-2003 Undergraduate Estimates)1
| Cost rank | University | In-state | Out-of-state | US News Ranking2 |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Penn State U. - U. Park | 9,434 | 18,922 | 12 |
| 2 | U. Mich. - Ann Arbor | 8-9,000 | 24-26,000 | 4 |
| 3 | UC Irvine | 5,875 | 16,579 | 13 |
| 4 | U. of Ill. - Urbana-Champ | 5,748 | 14,352 | 10 |
| 5 | UT Austin | 5,340 | 11,446 | 15 |
| 6 | College of William and Mary | 5,092 | 19,292 | 5 |
| 7 | U. Of Virginia | 4,780 | 19,990 | 2 |
| 8 | U. of Wisconsin - Madison | 4,470 | 18,390 | 8 |
| 9 | UC Berkeley | 4,200 | 12,396 | 1 |
| 10 | UC Davis | 4,095 | 16,104 | 11 |
| 11 | UC Santa Barbara | 3,988 | 15,997 | 14 |
| 12 | UC San Diego | 3,950 | 16,329 | 7 |
| 13 | U of N. Carolina - Chapel Hill | 3,826 | 15,110 | 6 |
| 14 | UC Los Angeles | 3,680 | 16,059 | 3 |
| 15 | Georgia Institute of Tech. | 2,790 | 13,160 | 9 |
1 While UT is ranked 15th of National Doctoral Universities by US News and World Report's America's Best Colleges 2003, it is the 5th most expensive for in-state undergraduate tuition.
2 Out-of-State tuition remains inexpensive, but UT-Austin also has a relatively small number of out-of-state students.
If the marketplace really determined costs, as decided purely by quality of education, UT-Austin would actually have to lower its prices to remain competitive with the ten schools listed above that rank higher and cost less.