UT President Randy Boyd says five myths are threatening the future of higher education

University of Tennessee President Randy Boyd (Photo by University of Tennessee)

University of Tennessee President Randy Boyd told business and community leaders in Nashville that five myths are hindering the ability for institutions of higher learning to produce the workforce Tennessee needs.

Speaking at Monday’s Rotary Club of Nashville meeting, Boyd said these myths convince the public into believing enrollment is down, there’s a greater demand for trade jobs, tuition is rising faster than inflation, students are leaving college with a lot of debt, and that the University of Tennessee is unaffordable to most students.

Boyd says none of these beliefs are true in Tennessee and the myths make it hard to argue for more money to build facilities needed to serve a growing enrollment.

“It is an existential threat, because when I’m literally in the state legislature at an education hearing in which people will, on the podium, will say one of those five things as a reason why we don't need any additional buildings,” said Boyd. “We believe as the land grant university in State of Tennessee one of our primary missions is to provide the talent for employers across our state, because if not us, where's the talent going to come from for all of these great jobs that we're creating in our state? Well, it's our responsibility to do that, and to do that, we've got to increase our output. We've got to have more students graduating.”

Boyd said the UT has space for this year's class, but additional facilities will be needed to meet the goal of increasing the current 59,000 enrollment to 71,000 students by 2030.

The UT leader debunked each myth he says is creating challenges for adding facilities individually, beginning with the question about enrollment decreasing for institutions of higher learning. Boyd says while that may be true in other states, the University of Tennessee is enrolling its largest freshman class ever and last year it had 60,000 students apply for 6,900 spots.

Boyd says those students are also graduating in more demand than their peers who attend technical schools.  He says over the last decade the state has seen 21,000 new jobs for students who receive a technical certification but many more for those who have a four-year degree.

“Over the last 10 years, there are 361,000 more jobs that require a four-year degree, and you know what those are? We need accountants. We need engineers, nurses, teachers, all those things that you can only get at a four-year degree,” said Boyd. “Technical schools are critically, critically important. We need more of those, but not at the expense of our four-year schools. We need more people that graduate from our great four-year institutions, not just UT but of all the universities across our state.”

Boyd also told business and community leaders that the expense of attending college is overstated.

He says tuition at UT has risen much lower than inflation, just .8 percent over the last five years, and through the UT Promise, families making $75,000 or less a year can attend any of UT’s facilities for free.

He also says despite what many think, students are actually graduating with little or no debt.

“At the University of Tennessee last year, 47 percent of all our students graduated with zero debt,” said Boyd. “Of those graduated with debt, the average debt was $26,000 which was four and a half percent less than what it was five years ago. So fewer and fewer students are graduating with any debt at all, and those that are graduating with debt are graduating with less and less debt.”