Strategic Plan Affordability and Efficiency Component

Transcription

1 Strategic Planning Guide Effective with the planning cycle, UVU will implement an Affordability and Efficiency Component within the four-year strategic planning process. Units should review their operations to identify efficiencies and eliminate unnecessary functions, freeing resources for activities that support UVU s mission, core themes, and administrative imperatives while reducing pressures on tuition. Units should also minimize direct costs imposed on students. This component implements Operate Ethically and Effectively Objective 3 (allocating resources to institutional objectives) and Secure Resources Objectives 2 (tuition and fees) and 3 (resources beyond state appropriations). It also builds on previous years areas of focus related to efficient operations. Results of the component are integrated into the PBA process. AFFORDABILITY AND EFFICIENCY COMPONENT OBJECTIVES The UVU Strategic Planning Affordability and Efficiency Component has three objectives: Promote resource efficiency through expense management, minimizing direct student costs, and generating new resources; Direct resource efficiencies toward supporting affordability for UVU students and their families; and Ensure that resource efficiencies are consistent with the mission and core themes, particularly upholding UVU s commitment to access and quality. CASE FOR ACTION Many institutions around the country face efficiency and affordability imperatives in response to high tuition, high student debt, and state funding reductions. In contrast, UVU remains one of the great educational values regionally and nationally. As a result of our low tuition, lower cost of living, and debt-averse culture, UVU graduates have exceptionally low debt burdens. And UVU has been remarkably successful in securing state support, most notably receiving $21 million in acute equity funding in Nonetheless, in the current fiscal and political environment all state agencies face an obligation to use scarce taxpayer dollars wisely. UVU must demonstrate its responsibility so that it remains positioned to encourage continued state investment. Responsible stewardship of resources is essential to achieving UVU s ambition to be the nation s very best open admissions platform for student success. UVU must continue to carefully manage costs and revenue generation in order to ensure the sustainability of our remarkable success. Promote Student Success Affordability is a major consideration for student success. Students who struggle to pay for school, often working more hours than their schedules can support, are less likely to perform well in classes and to register

2 Strategic Planning Guide 2 for classes each semester. We can improve retention, persistence, and completion significantly by minimizing financial obstacles. Success means more than just graduation; it means preparing students for success in their subsequent academic and professional lives. Students are proud of what they learn at UVU, and employers consistently praise UVU s graduates. To ensure that this continues, UVU needs to continually reallocate its resources as necessary to eliminate outdated offerings and adapt to emerging student and regional needs. Manage Growth Based on expected regional growth, the Strategic Plan for Managing Growth projects that UVU will add more than 13,000 students between 2015 and 2025, totaling more than 46,000 students. This will require an additional $77 million in revenue annually by 2025, and capital investment to support the addition of one million square feet of facilities at the main campus, the Vineyard campus, and a number of satellite campuses. Even in the best fiscal environments this cannot come from state funding alone. Support Inclusion UVU s mission is to provide opportunity not only through its open admissions policies but also by maintaining affordability. Continuing affordability is essential to our mission, which limits our ability to use tuition increases to meet growth resource needs and places a higher priority on cost efficiencies and revenue generation. UVU s sticker price the cost of tuition, books, and other expenses each semester is not the only factor affecting inclusion. Students often take more courses than they need to graduate and delay completing their programs because they cannot get the courses they need when they need them. This increases the number of semesters they pay tuition over the course of a program, reduces the financial aid that they can receive (especially after exceeding the maximum number of aid semesters), and increases the opportunity cost of pursuing education rather than working. AFFORDABILITY AND EFFICIENCY ACTIONS The Affordability and Efficiency Planning objectives may be pursued through a variety of actions. Units are encouraged to consider action in five areas as appropriate to their areas of responsibility: General Allocation of Resources Student Success Support Services Facilities and Infrastructure Enhanced Revenue The actions suggested for planning consideration are based on the experiences of similar processes at other institutions and the unique circumstances at UVU. Units are not required to pursue any particular strategy, and are encouraged to use the strategies described below as examples to shape planning specific to their needs

3 Strategic Planning Guide 3 and conditions. Units should not implement strategies that are inconsistent with the UVU mission and core themes solely for the sake of efficiency, and are encouraged to identify other strategies based on their specific missions and capabilities. General Allocation of Resources UVU will ensure that resources are used strategically and effectively in support of its mission and core themes. Focus efforts on functions that demonstrably further the university and unit missions, identifying and eliminating functions that do not support mission fulfillment. Prioritize resources connected to needs demonstrated through assessment in strategic planning and learning outcomes. Provide seed money to support initiatives that promise future efficiencies (e.g., developing innovative technologies, upgrading systems and processes, creating common curriculum, or producing open educational resources). Identify and eliminate cost shifting effects (increased costs to other units as a result of unit budget decisions). Regularly assess allocated resources, reallocating resources internally in response to changing cost drivers and operational needs as well as reallocating consistently unused allocations to higher priority needs across the university. Remove unnecessary obstacles in policy and process that prevent implementation of efficiencies. Student Success UVU will structure academic programs, enrollment, scheduling, and advising to support timely completion of students educational goals and efficiently use university resources. Eliminate unnecessary course fees. Review courses and programs to reduce duplication of effort across departments, optimize program cohort size, align academic offerings to reduce administrative costs and provide students with reliable information for academic planning, and eliminate under-enrolled or underperforming programs and services. Integrate programs within career pathways and stackable degrees to ensure that students do not take extra courses. Strategically utilize delivery methods, optimize class size, coordinate scheduling, and maximize summer and online programs to meet students needs and promote even accelerate timely program completion. Increase instructional productivity by managing faculty workload, offering high-demand classes at high-demand times, maximizing space utilization, increasing offerings of large and hybrid classes, and shifting to a smaller number of moderately enrolled electives and options for program requirements. Reduce student expenses for course materials by standardizing or accommodating flexibility in textbooks and other instructional materials, and using web-available, open educational resources, and other lower-cost alternatives as appropriate for highly enrolled courses.

4 Strategic Planning Guide 4 Fulfill our educational mission by maximizing completion through ongoing, program-level improvements in academic quality and services that retain students through their educational careers. Simplify communication with students to remove barriers to services and programs, and to support timely completion of their programs. Implement information-driven advising for all students throughout their academic careers. Streamline program advising and graduation guidance to reduce credits in excess of those required for the program. Ensure that financial aid programs are aligned with the university s mission and strategic goals and can demonstrate effectiveness in supporting student success. Support Services UVU will manage support services and functions so that they do not divert resources inappropriately from student success. Identify non-core support services, functions, and systems for which no clear business case is present or that might be run more efficiently and as effectively through outsourcing. Develop economies of scale by channeling purchases through campus and state contracts, campus standards, site licenses, and appropriate collaborative agreements with other institutions and agencies. Streamline organizational structures to reduce unnecessary organizational layers, eliminate duplication of programs and services, and coordinate related projects and functions. Review the administration of employee benefit programs to ensure that costs and service quality are appropriate to the university s benefits strategy. Implement innovative process improvements and workflows that generate operational efficiencies and reduce costs to students. Facilities and Infrastructure UVU will maximize use of physical space, utilize communication technology, and develop alternatives to physical facilities in order to minimize demand for additional physical facilities. Optimize space utilization and implement practices less reliant on current facilities (e.g., enhance use of public transportation to allow development of parking lots) to maximize use of existing space. Identify sustainable ways to more efficiently and effectively manage a multi-campus organization. Utilize digital capabilities (e.g., OER, Canvas, library databases) to both minimize need for physical space and to support the success of students not physically located on campus. Utilize virtual computer labs, including both general purpose labs and multi-specialized labs that provide program-specific software for many programs in one virtual facility. Enhance environmental and energy sustainability to reduce operating costs. Plan for full lifecycle and replacement costs when purchasing technology.

5 Strategic Planning Guide 5 Enhanced Revenue UVU will identify additional sources of revenue that can reduce need for tuition increases and do not themselves increase costs to students. Identify opportunities to develop affinity partnerships and sponsorships. Consider alternative tuition and fee structures that can generate new revenue through increased enrollment without demanding proportional increases in resources. AFFORDABILITY AND EFFICIENCY PLANS Each executive will complete an Affordability and Efficiency Plan during the annual strategic planning process. This plan will be submitted through Insight 2.0 in which executives will identify specific actions taken to enhance affordability and efficiencies. Executives will provide: Descriptions of their strategies. Whether the strategy is directed toward affordability (reducing direct costs to students) or efficiency (reducing expenditures for reallocation). For affordability strategies, the per student reduction in costs and the number of students to whom the strategy applies. For efficiency strategies, the total cost savings. Total efficiency savings will also be shown in the strategic planning framework. In the PBA process, executives will have the opportunity to reallocate savings from efficiency strategies to PBA requests in order to offset new resource demands, demonstrating resource responsibility. Institutional Effectiveness and Planning will provide an institutional affordability and efficiency report summarizing total savings, including the extent to which efficiency strategies have reduced need for tuition and fee increases.