I'll begin with what is a critical issue on the higher education landscape: the challenge
to provide access to a world-class college education that remains affordable.
So many around Ohio and across the country, including many in this room, are working to
solve this elusive equation today.
On this issue, I want to speak directly to our students and their families.
In terms of cost and quality, Ohio State remains one of the best values in the nation.
We are ranked the 15th "best value" among all public universities, up from 36th just
two years ago.
This is good news, but it's not enough.
Despite the long-term value of a degree, we must be sensitive to the debt burden associated
with a college education, especially for low- and middle-income families.
Students crossing the Oval with book bags filled with knowledge and promise should not
be burdened with the weight of worry about how to pay for college.
Governor Kasich announced in February the creation of a Blue Ribbon Task Force on affordability.
We will seize this opportunity to advance bold ideas to work harder and smarter to contain
costs strategies such as better utilizing information and educational technology and
implementing targeted constructive advising so that more students graduate on time.
We look forward to working with our partners to lead this critical effort.
In fact, we've already begun.
On a national level, Ohio State is a charter participant in the University Innovation Alliance
of 11 universities working collectively on affordability and access.
We specifically, we are looking at ways to use data and predictive analytics to increase
graduation rates and decrease time to degree while maintaining or enhancing quality.
I've had direct experience with programs like this earlier in my career, and we were rewarded
with outstanding results.
That was on a more limited scale (of course, everything's on a limited scale than the Ohio
State University) So now our challenge is to scale up and show others and ourselves
that we can do this more broadly.
The first phase of the program is underway, and we will evaluate the findings and implement
continually refined solutions in coming years.
This will help us with the efficiency of our educational processes,
but we must do more.
We must refine and modernize the way we do business.
To that end, I have directed my senior leadership team to submit plans to identify $200 million
in administrative efficiencies and $200 million more in revenue generation over the next five
years.
These resources will be reinvested to lower the cost and improve the quality of the university.
Our confidence that we can do this comes in part from preliminary success that we have
already had, this year alone, at our academic medical center.
We have, through efficiency and cost avoidance, saved more than $50 million in the past nine
months alone.
We have done this by doing everything from reducing the use of color printing, to scrutinizing
human resources decisions to negotiating better terms from vendors.
At the same time, our quality, safety and patient satisfaction numbers are outstanding,
in several cases, to be among the highest anywhere in the country.
Kudos and thanks to so many who work so hard to make this true, hospital leadership, doctors,
research scientists, nurses, custodians and the whole crew.
You are doing work that directly affects and improves the lives of thousands of individuals
here and around the world.
Our goal now is to realize similar savings and efficiencies throughout our academic enterprise.
Additional resources from efficiency savings and revenue generation will enable us to reinvest
in three core areas: First, financial aid and scholarships to reduce
student debt; second, to support for our faculty and staff
and academic programs; and third we will retain to support the best new ideas and innovations
for the future.
The first targeted use of these savings will be an immediate increase to the scholarship
pool, particularly for lower- and middle-income students, by a minimum of $15 million in the
2015-2016 academic year.
We will sustain this level at a minimum for at least five years thereafter, but we'd like
it to increase.
Our overall goal will be to increase scholarships at least $100 million by the year 2020.
We will begin these measures immediately, not at the expense of the academic experience,
but by investing savings achieved by operating the university more efficiently.
We also will continue a robust program of merit-based aid for exceptionally talented
students, and we are committed to working with the governor and our legislative leaders
to keep our tuition among the most affordable in the nation.
In partnership with our Board of Trustees, we are looking carefully at executive compensation,
and our work continues on our overall compensation and classification.
Together, these are intended to create consistency and equity in our human resources policies.
We recognize that we must balance competitive salaries needed to attract exceptional faculty
and staff with our commitment to be responsible stewards of resources.
Educational excellence is a critical variable of the equation, and it contributes directly
access and affordability.
A more efficient educational system leads to higher graduation rates and a shorter time
to degree.
To this end, we are convening a faculty summit this May to continue our nascent discussions
of ways that we can improve upon our already excellent educational offerings and pedagogy.
The first part of these efforts is the creation of a university-wide institute on teaching
and learning that will support both tenured and non-tenured faculty.
A collaboration between faculty and staff and students across the university, this campus-wide
institute will enhance support for excellent teaching, expand teaching and learning scholarship
and apply student-centered analytics to improve learning outcomes.
I have spoken earlier about our incredible impact as a university.
We are forging the future of innovation through our Discovery Themes, the university's bold
vision to extend our reach on a global scale.
We have built a powerful academic research machine that is pushing discovery in areas
from memory and dark matter to hybrid-electric drivetrains and climate history.
And we make significant contributions in law and policy, science and the arts, humanities,
the health sciences and agriculture, and across the length and breadth of hundreds of fields
of inquiry and more than 175 major courses of study.
We want to provide an environment that supports and inspires our faculty to their most creative
and productive accomplishments.
This gives me an opportunity to reaffirm our belief in the bedrock principle that the traditional
scholarly and artistic intellectual endeavors of our faculty produced by our faculty belong
to our faculty.
Our ability to provide affordable excellence is fundamental to those we are seeking to
serve as a land-grant university in the 21st century.
We must ensure that the door to the American Dream is open and leads our students to bright
futures.