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V Academic Division Operating Uses of Funds
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3. AccessUVa/Financial Aid
The Board of Visitors authorized AccessUVa in February 2004 to ensure that an undergraduate education at the
University would be available to all students regardless of their financial circumstances. The program was successful in
increasing socioeconomic diversity, reducing student loan debt, and meeting 100 percent of need for all of the University’s
students. With the dramatic economic downturn, cuts in state and federal funding, and the increasing cost of attendance,
institutional expenditures for the program have risen sharply, projected to total approximately $40.2 million in FY13. The
University is developing an approach to AccessUVa that is flexible enough to meet economic realities while enabling the
University to meet its public mandate in ways consistent with its Jeffersonian origins. As a result, University spending for
AccessUVa is expected to increase to $48.7 million by FY17, once program changes are fully implemented.
Context: IMPROVING ACCESS AND Limiting
Students’ Debt Burden
S
ince 1990, the University has had a financial aid
philosophy designed to promote equal access for
all admitted undergraduate candidates and retention
and graduation success. There are several principles at
the core of this philosophy:
n
Students whose need is extreme should be given
first priority for grant assistance. These students
are, in many instances, more at risk because their
financial circumstances present an obstacle to
completion of their education.
n
Students will receive self-help (loan and workstudy) in their financial assistance packages if
sufficient grant funding is unavailable to provide for
the students’ need.
Today, the University operates under the AccessUVa
resolution approved by the Board of Visitors in
February 2004 and updated in 2005. The Board
Financing Academic Excellence FY14–FY17
committed to meeting 100 percent of demonstrated
financial need for qualifying undergraduate students
at all income levels in FY05.
At the same time, the Board implemented a phased
program of replacing loans with grants. In FY05,
the Board began a four-year effort to completely
replace need-based loans with grants for qualifying
undergraduate students with family income at or
below 150 percent of the federal poverty level (later
amended to 200 percent of the federal poverty level).
This was followed the next year by a corresponding
program for all students, capping their loans at
25 percent of the projected undergraduate in-state
cost of attendance over four years and replacing the
rest with grants. AccessUVa was fully implemented in
Academic Year 2009.
A number of factors govern how AccessUVa is
managed:
n
Need is defined as the cost of attendance (tuition,
required fees, housing, dining, personal expenses,
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AccessUVA/Financial aid
books, supplies, and travel) less expected family
contribution as determined by data gathered from
the Free Application for Federal Student Aid
(FAFSA) and various institutional applications.
n
Funding for AccessUVa is considered part of the
annual budget process.
n
The University does not distinguish between
in-state and out-of-state students in regard to
AccessUVa. All students have 100 percent of their
need met with loans, work-study, and grants.
Eligible low-income students receive all grant funds
to meet their need.
n
International students do not receive financial aid
from either the University’s need-based sources or
endowments.
n
AccessUVa is for undergraduate students only.
Graduate and professional students are not eligible.
n
AccessUVa’s benefits cover up to eight semesters
(four years) of enrollment.
Current Situation: BALANCING
INCREASING COSTS WITH U.VA.’S
PUBLIC MANDATE
Student Financial Services (SFS) oversees AccessUVa.
SFS meets 100 percent of demonstrated financial need
for all students with a combination of loans, workstudy, and grants. Low-income students, those within
200 percent of the Department of Health and Human
Services’ Poverty Guidelines, receive an award
package that contains no loans and no work-study.
As a result of AccessUVa, socioeconomic diversity has
improved, the number of Pell Grant recipients has
increased, and undergraduate loan indebtedness has
been eliminated for some students, while it has been
kept to a minimum for others.
High-achieving, low-income students applying to the
University receive a consistent message regarding
financial aid: by minimizing their indebtedness, the
University encourages them to pursue the major
and career of their choice. AccessUVa was rated the
best financial aid program among public colleges
and universities in Princeton Review’s 2012 Guide to
Best Colleges and second best in Kiplinger’s Personal
Finance magazine’s 100 Best Values in Public Colleges
list for 2012–13.
From a financial viewpoint, however, AccessUVa has
proved increasingly hard to sustain. Unrestricted
institutional funds devoted to the program have
increased from about $11.5 million at the inception of
the program to an estimated $40.2 million for FY13.
The annual cost of supporting the program is affected
by several factors. First, the number of undergraduate
students with demonstrated financial need continues
to increase. During the first year of AccessUVa,
24 percent of the University’s undergraduate student
population qualified for need-based financial aid.
Today, that number has increased to more than
34 percent, or 4,912 undergraduates. The economic
downturn was the primary driver for this increase in
need. The University’s phased enrollment growth also
contributed.
Second, the amount of need-based aid from outside
the University has remained flat or declined in real
terms during this time of increasing need. The
federal government provides funding for Pell Grants,
Supplemental Educational Opportunity Grants,
direct subsidized loans, Perkins Loans, and workstudy. Of these programs, only Pell Grant support has
increased, but its eligibility requirements have been
tightened. While grant support for need-based aid
from the Commonwealth has increased slightly by
$1.5 million from FY05 to FY13, this growth has not
kept pace with the overall costs of AccessUVa.
The third factor influencing annual costs is the
amount of endowed scholarships for need-based
aid. Most of the endowed scholarships supporting
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The final factor is the growth in the price of
attendance. The tuition price drives AccessUVa
costs. During the first year of AccessUVa, in-state
undergraduate tuition and fees for entering students
totaled $6,790, with an overall price of attendance of
$15,865. Non-Virginians paid $22,890 for tuition and
fees, with an overall price of attendance of $33,020.
During the current award year, tuition and fees and
overall price of attendance for entering Virginians
equal $12,216 and $25,354, respectively, and for
non-Virginians, $38,228 and $52,606, respectively.
The price of attendance for all students has increased
60 percent in the last nine academic years. Some
of the components of the price of attendance, such
as housing, dining, and textbooks, are not entirely
under the University’s control and have increased
significantly over time.
Cost, however, is not the only measure of a
financial aid program. The University’s private peer
institutions have long approached financial aid from
a tuition-discounting perspective. The National
Association of College and University Business
Officers (NACUBO) conducts an annual survey of
private institutions’ tuition-discounting practices
and defines tuition discount as all institutional grant
dollars (restricted and unrestricted grants, including
merit aid and athletic scholarships) as a percentage of
AccessUVa Sources of Funds—Need-Based Financial Aid
Years Ending June 30 (in Millions)
$100
AccessUVa
Fully Implemented
Federal—Grants
80
Federal—Loans
Federal—Work-Study
60
State—Grants
Outside—Grants
AccessUVa Begins
Athletic
Endowment—Grants
40
Unrestricted
Institutional Grants
20
0
FY99
FY00
FY01
FY02
FY03
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FY04
FY05
FY06
FY07
FY08
FY09
FY10
FY12
FY11
FY13
77
AccessUVA/Financial aid
AccessUVa predate the program. The last major gift
to support need-based scholarships since AccessUVa
began in 2005 was received in 2006. Additional
endowed scholarships could slow down the growth
and dependency on unrestricted revenues to support
the majority of need-based aid at the University. As
mentioned in the Philanthropy section, the Initiative
to Fund Academic Excellence includes a bridge goal
of $50 million for AccessUVa.
V Academic Division Operating Uses of Funds
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78
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Historic Investment of Unrestricted Resources in AccessUVa (in Thousands)
AccessUVA/Financial aid
FY09
Undergraduate Tuition
Unrestricted Endowment
FY10
$21,239
5,103
0
Gross Undergraduate Tuition and Differential Revenue
Unrestricted AccessUVa Rate
Net Tuition Revenue
gross tuition and fee revenue. According to the 2011
NACUBO study, the average private tuition discount
rate for all undergraduate students was 37.2 percent.
NACUBO is expected to expand the next tuitiondiscount study to include public universities. The
University intends to participate, which will provide
a way of comparing its policies with both public and
private peer institutions.
FY12
FY13
$7,839
$27,674
$31,058
6,000
0
10,660
9,110
0
22,435
0
0
$21,581
$27,239
$30,274
$38,334
$40,168
$179,902
$191,375
$211,070
$233,944
$247,215
12.0%
14.2%
14.3%
16.4%
16.2%
$158,314
$164,200
$180,887
$195,577
$207,166
American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009
Total Unrestricted Institutional Sources Allocated to AccessUVa
FY11
$16,478
expects to hold costs to 15.4 percent of gross
undergraduate tuition revenue. As a result, the
University foresees its institutional contribution to
the program to be $40.2 million in FY14 and projects
a gradual increase to $48.7 million by FY17.
Going forward, the University will establish a regular
program review process using a set of predetermined
metrics by which the cost and objectives of the program
can be evaluated.
Future Directions: PRESERVING the
Program’s Viability
Over the next four years, the University will continue
to carefully manage its institutional commitment to
AccessUVa with resources dedicated to financial aid
(e.g., new restricted endowments). The University
Projected Investment of Unrestricted Resources in AccessUVa (in Thousands)
Undergraduate Tuition
Unrestricted Endowment
Total Unrestricted Institutional Sources Allocated to AccessUVa
Gross Undergraduate Tuition and Differential Revenue
Unrestricted AccessUVa Rate
Net Tuition Revenue
FY14
FY15
FY16
FY17
$32,655
$36,180
$41,430
$46,730
7,545
6,000
4,000
2,000
$40,200
$42,180
$45,430
$48,730
$260,735
$274,309
$294,917
$315,658
15.4%
15.4%
15.4%
15.4%
$220,582
$232,065
$249,500
$267,047
V Academic Division Operating Uses of Funds