September 24, 2018
Dual Enrollment Fee & Revenue Functioning as an Grant
Purpose
and practice of UCEAP’s Dual Enrollment Fee, and a proposal to change its name
to “Exchange Program Fee”
Gordon Schaeffer, Director of Research
Contents
For any reason, UCEAP’s Business Plan
– or how UCEAP expects to generate sufficient revenue to provide services and
programs to students – is less understood than her Business Model. This short
brief provides an in understanding of one specific revenue source, the “Dual
Enrollment Fee,” and articulates why we now propose making the purposes of that
fee more transparent by changing its title to the “Exchange Program Fee.”
What is more, by
properly associating the revenue and uses of funds, UCEAP can improve her
budgeting, uses of funds, and operations of academic programs in the interests
of UC students. Effectively, UCEAP’s current business directs resources that
are not recognized as a grant for UCEAP participants in Exchange related
programs.
UCEAP Revenues
In restructuring UCEAP from operating as a subsidized
entity to a self-sustaining academic program, the UC Regents through their
authority assigned to UCEAP the authority to collect – as is required of all
enrolled students – the UC Tuition and
Student Services Fees.[1] That UCEAP collects and retains the full use of
participant Tuition & Student Services recognizes UCEAP as an instructional
program committed to providing an enriched learning environment for all UC students
(See, UC
Regent Policy 3101).[2]
Additionally, as UCEAP was then mandated to assess
students the full cost of participation in their program, UCEAP was granted the
right to assess and collect the following fees:
UCEAP was then also granted the right to assess and
collect the following fees.
- · The Program Participation Fee – which was to cover over-head costs of program administration
- · The Dual Enrollment Fee – for the additional expenses related to programs that operate with student exchange agreements
- · A Program Option Fee – for the costs of programs where the above revenues are still insufficient to cover the costs of instruction in the students program of choice[3]
To be
clear, this discussion of UCEAP’s revenue sources must note that UCEAP:
- · Collects Campus Miscellaneous Fees and passes this on to the participant’s campus of origin without any assessment for service or dilution of the amount collected
- · Collects Non-Resident Supplemental Tuition and passes this back to the participant’s campus of origin without any assessment for service or dilution of the amount collected
- · Participates fully in the University Student Aid Pool (USAP) and the Return-To-Aid (RTA) mechanism
- This, in turn, assures UCEAP program participants use of all UC student related financial aid services and funds
- · UCEAP possesses the privilege to solicit UCEAP alumni for student scholarships (not capital campaigns for administration, etc., See appendix on Authorization to Solicit Alumni)
- · UCEAP’s scholarships and grants, when applied to the student’s financial aid package, reduce loans before reducing UC aid.
- · At its discretion, UCEAP can collect what are traditionally called “out of pocket” expenses to assist students in securing housing, meals, travel, and other expenses related to their academic program of choice
- · UCEAP does not have an Application Fee[4]
- · UCEAP does impose a late Withdrawal Fee (or application transfer fee), late payment fee, and fee for enrolling in the Extended Payment Program (see details & amounts at Fees & Penalties)
Uses of Revenues
Per UCEAP’s business plan, all
UCEAP fees are to be used for operating a self-sustaining academic program. All
students in good academic standing are eligible to apply to the UCEAP program
of their choice and, again, currently UCEAP does not have authorization to
assess applicants an Application Fee. Selection or being awarded an opportunity
to participate in any UCEAP program is, however, not guaranteed to any student
– regardless of academic merit and standing. UCEAP must often collaborate with
a partner/host institution and balance exchanges between the institutions in
order to provide an opportunity and capacity for UC students.
Implementation & Suspension of Dual Enrollment Fee Collection
UCEAP began applying the Dual Enrollment fee in AY
2010-11; the amount collected was $50 per participant – regardless of length –
enrolled in any exchange related program. As with all new fees (post AY 2009) this
Dual Enrollment fee was assessed the 33% RTA for USAP. From the $50 collected,
UCEAP would have use of $33.33, and USAP would be funded $16.67 (which assists
students across the UC system, as the distribution of USAP funds do not reflect
their campus or institutional origin).
In
2010-11 UCEAP enrolled 2,981 students in “Exchange Programs” – which would have
delivered to USAP nearly $50,000. Again, in 2011-12, UCEAP assed the $50 fee on
2,621 students, which would have resulted in another $44k to USAP.
Beginning
with AY 2012-13, UCEAP suspended the collection of the Dual Enrollment Fee. For
each of the last 6 years UCEAP has abandoned revenue, in effect granting each
participant in her exchange related programs $50. The accumulated lost revenue
to UCEAP is over $500,000 (and to USAP over $250,000).
Figure 1:
Dual Enrollment/Exchange Program Fees as Uncollected Revenue.
Figure 2:
Details of Dual Enrollment/Exchange Program Fee –Collected & Uncollected.
Given
UCEAP’s operating position and forecast, and the fact that there are over 6 FTE
dedicated alone to our Exchange Program’s administration of Reciprocity students
(to say nothing of Academic support and articulations of courses taken abroad
for by UC students in Exchange programs), UCEAP needs to consider if now is an appropriate
time to reinstate collections of her Dual Enrollment Fee. As this fee needs to
be transparent in its purposes, and is collected from UCEAP program
participants, if implemented we would wish to change the name to “Exchange
Program Fee”.
Revenue
Functioning as a Grant
What is more, as UCEAP generates
opportunities with her partners for Exchange program participants, there is an
added and often unrecognized cost borne by UCEAP – paying the campuses roughly
$2,200/FTE in campus miscellaneous and student services fees for enrolled Exchange
students. As Figure 3 makes evident
(below) this is an unrecognized use of revenue “operating as a grant” for UC
students in Exchange programs. Were UCEAP to fully recover these financial
obligations, we would need to assess something more like $1,200/program participant
in Exchange programs (($2.5M/N of participants – where N was 2,694 in AY
2017-18)*1.33). This added cost might, however, make these programs
prohibitively expensive to UC students who are not accustomed to an education
that is without significant state contributions. Hence, UCEAP’s business plan
and model is inherently incongruous and it might be that UCEAP needs to – with
her GC and others – resolve to allow for this grant to be formally recognized
for what it is, and to similarly reduce RTA contributions to USAP for this
activity.
Figure 3:
Campus Contributions for Exchange Program Participants
Appendix: Authorization
to Solicit Funds from UCEAP Alumni for Scholarships
[2] UCEAP
is not identified by Standing Order 110.1 as
either an Academic Unit or Affiliated Institution of the University of
California.
[3] UCEAP
participants are enrolled in programs defined by the UCEAP Student Information
System (MyEAP) and the variables – Country, Program, Partner, & Option –
and hence this fee’s title “Program Option Fee.” Without seeking Governing
Council or UC Regents approval, UCEAP unilaterally changed the name of this fee
to “Program Specific Fee (PSF)” (See, Fee
Definitions). This allowed for confusions to emerge as to the purpose of
this fee (again, see definitions for “PSF”) and this is especially worrisome as
perhaps “pass-thru” costs for partners are by default now having 33% added to them
(hopefully a trivial amount of money?) as required for RTA to USAP. There’s
probably some exceptionally remote possibility that someone would take
exception to the name change (i.e., maybe we could be challenged for an
unauthorized fee collection?), but what this really engendered was a change to
the Business Plan and the pursuit of our then director’s ideal of “cross-subsidization.”
What that director meant by the word “cross” was never fully articulated or put
to writing. But that some programs would be subsidized by others – or that some
students would be paying the direct costs of other students’ educational
choices – was a conscious business decision and novel direction within UCEAP.
[4] A
few campuses have charged a fee for study abroad advising. But this fee’s
revenue is not shared with UCEAP and UCEAP has no input on when the fee is
assessed, how often it might be assessed, or how much the cost is to the
student.
