TUITION RATE FACT SHEET

• The University of Pittsburgh has been making remarkable progress in student demand and quality, research funding, and private support. Over the past five years, freshman applications have increased by 71 percent, research funding is up 41 percent, private voluntary support has increased by 83 percent, and the University's endowment has grown by 112 percent.

• A relentless focus on quality has been a driving factor in this success, coupled with a comprehensive program to reallocate resources to high priority areas, improve efficiency, control costs, and develop multiple revenue sources.

• In addition to the extensive reallocations that are part of the regular budget and planning process, the University has invested more than $32 million in direct quality enhancements to its academic, student life, and research programs. This amount represents more than half of the revenue from increased tuition.

• The University is committed to ensuring access to qualified students and has funded financial aid increases of $22.8 million during the past six years, which together with the quality investments, accounts for almost the entire tuition increase. The annualized rate of increase for undergraduate financial aid during that period has been 23.5 percent.

• The University has to deal with a rate of inflation, as measured by the Higher Education Price Index, that is twice that of the Consumer Price Index. (e.g. the cost of electronic library resources has increased tenfold over the past five years.)

• A very large fraction of the inflationary pressure is in compensation, and here Pitt has lost ground in terms of competitive salary increases for faculty compared to other major research universities.

• Pitt has a higher than average component of graduate and professional education programs, which tend to be more expensive.

• Pitt's urban location, while an advantage in many ways, is nonetheless a more expensive environment in which to operate.

• These factors, coupled with Commonwealth funding policies, have created a dramatic shift in the last 25 years. In 1975, the Commonwealth provided 32 percent of the University's revenue. By 2000, that had declined to 15 percent, and will only be 14 percent this year. The fact that tuition, as a percentage of total revenue, increased only from 21 percent to 25 percent during that same period is the result of the University's success at increasing its other revenue sources.

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