Jack Brittain, Dean of the David Eccles School of Business and Vice President of Technology Commercialization at the University of Utah, announced on Friday that the Board of Regents, the final authoritative body for this decision, has approved a special 10% tuition differential for the business school.
Approximately 3,000 students attend, meaning that a few million dollars will be provided by the increase, allowing the school to maintain or even improve the quality of education and the reputation of the program.
Utah's tuition is remarkably low and business graduates will earn much more than most other UofU grads, meaning that even with the differential, they are still getting a better deal.
I wholeheartedly support the new initiative. Below, I have copied a few key excerpts from the Dean's Announcement:
INVESTING IN THE FUTURE - A world-class University is defined by a world-class faculty.
- Hire the Best. To continue to provide excellence in education and research, we must hire and retain top faculty. We have successfully hired faculty who are graduates of the World’s best programs and who are exceptional scholars – many with teaching awards and real world experience. We aim to hire the very best faculty.
- Retain the Best. Current faculty are regularly approached by competitive institutions looking to lure them away from the David Eccles School . Increased funding allows us to retain these faculty through enhanced research funding and market-competitive salaries.
- Teach with the Best. Last year we increased undergraduate classes taught by full time PhD faculty from 20% to almost 50%. Increased funding will allow us to meet our goal of over 70% undergraduate classes taught by full-time, PhD-qualified faculty.
EQUITABLE AND AFFORDABLE – Our tuition and fees are designed to be fair to business students, the University community and the taxpayers.
- Need-based Scholarships - We have tripled our scholarship fund in the last five years to over 1.5 million dollars with plans to grow this even further as part of our new fund raising campaign.
- Paying our Fair Share - On average, business students will earn one million dollars more in their lifetime than other majors while contributing a similar amount to the Utah economy. We feel it is only appropriate that the funding for this increasingly costly business education fall more fully on the business programs rather than be taken out of the University’s general funding.
- Best Value in the West - The David Eccles School of Business is ranked 6th in the Western US , while undergraduate tuition is among the lowest in the region. On the graduate level, MBA tuition is the lowest among its regional peers and less than half the cost of four competing programs.
RECOGNIZED EXCELLENCE
- Faculty ranked 27th in the world in research by the Financial Times of London 2006 and the David Eccles School among the top 75 programs in the world.
- Wall Street Journal ranks DESB 26th in Regional Ranking of Recruiters Top Picks of MBA Programs and 48th overall in North America.
- Princeton Review ranks DESB 7th world-wide for “Best Campus Environment” 2006
- MBA program ranked #56 in U.S. News and World ranking 2005
David Eccles School named in the World’s Top 100 Business Schools by the Wall Street Journal. - Undergraduate program ranked #48 by News and World Report 2005
- David Eccles School named one of the Top 100 Entrepreneurship programs for the third successive year by Entrepreneur magazine.
- Best of State awards Dean and VP Jack W. Brittain a medal for The Best Education Administrator in Utah and a Best of State Statue for the David Eccles School of Business.
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