Decreasing teaching loads raises tuition, study says

A study published this month claims that high tuition rates may be in part caused by decreasing teaching loads at universities, causing officials to express concern and question whether it is necessary for universities to continuously cut down on the amount of classes that professors teach.

The study, called “Selling Students Short,” focuses on data from 1987 until 2004. It explains probable causes for the decrease in teaching loads and examines how this affects tuition costs for students. It also calculates how much revenue could be raised if universities decided to increase teaching loads.

Dr. Andrew Gillen, the author of the study, said universities are putting more emphasis towards research than teaching in recent years.

“It’s much easier for institutions to point towards high quality research than it is to high quality teaching. So the institutions are kind of prioritizing research over teaching,” he said.

Because universities place so much emphasis on research, however, professors tend to desire less teaching loads and more time for research.

“On the professors' side, it’s really being driven by the need to ‘publish or parish,” Gillen said. “The professors pretty much are geared towards the publication of research.”

The study reported that, because already-hired teachers are teaching less and researching more, the university needs to hire more professors to compensate. It said these extra costs could be coming out of student tuition money.

However, Colin Riley, Boston University’s spokesman, said that, in addition to teaching, focusing on research also helps students thrive at universities.

“When faculty members are doing research to advance their knowledge in a subject area, not only are they advancing their own knowledge in that particular area or making discoveries or advances in science, but they’re also exposing their students and other researchers and assistants who are participating in that research,” Riley said.

In order for teachers to devote more time towards research, however, universities sometimes replace teaching time with research time. Dr. Michael Poliakoff, the vice president of policy at the American Council of Trustees and Alumni, said cutting down on teaching loads causes tuition to spike.

“It [decreasing teaching loads] is one of the very largest cost drivers in higher education. As you may know, the cost of tuition has gone up more than four times the rate of inflation in the past few decades,” he said. “This is really putting education beyond the reach of so many people.”

Colin Riley, Boston University’s spokesman, said BU’s most expensive part of the operating budget is paying for employees.

“The biggest expense side of the university’s operating budget is salaries and benefits for all employees – about 30 percent is faculty – which is half of the operating budget. It costs about half a billion dollars,” he said.

Although both public institutions and private institutions experience this phenomenon, Gillen said the decline in teaching loads is more prevalent in private institutions.

“In general, the decline in teaching loads is slightly larger in private institutions. And then when we get down to how much tuition revenue can be raised, what we kind of see is if private universities increase their teaching loads and use the extra classes to bring in more students, they can generally raise more revenue than a public institution can,” he said.

Bridget Johnson, a College of Arts and Sciences Junior, said universities should not make students pay more for extra teachers.

“I think universities should do something about it. I don’t think it’s fair that we have to pay more for them to teach less,” she said.

But Lauren Zayas, a College of Arts and Sciences senior, said some of her teachers are already overloaded with classes.

“As far as the psych department goes, the teachers are already overloaded. My teachers are teaching like two experimental courses already. I guess it depends on each individual department,” she said.

In the fight to balance research and teaching, it is important for universities to consider what each teacher’s purpose is.

Leander Angst, a College of Communication Junior, said it’s important for teachers to have the opportunity to explore their work more thoroughly.

“You can’t tell teachers not to do research because I mean, my dad is a researcher, it’s what he likes doing, it’s what his job is to a certain extent. Teachers want to delve deeper into what they want to do, so I think it’s an important thing for them,” he said.

While research is very important to many professors, it may be more financially beneficial to further separate teaching from researching, Gillen said.

“What I’d really like to see is more of a distinction between researchers and teaching, where teaching loads increase for most professors but for a small segment they stay low or even perhaps go lower."

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