Benefits committee will study tuition assistance program

CORRECTION (2/28): A story in yesterday's Daily Pennsylvanian incorrectly identified the position of Sandy Smith. He is an administrative assistant in the graduate division of the School of Arts and Sciences. The Personnel Benefits Committee decided last week to study the tuition assistance program available to staff members before voting on its expansion, committee members said yesterday. At the monthly meeting of the University Council's committee last Friday, members had intended to evaluate last year's human resource proposal to expand the current program so that it includes monetary subsidies for courses taken off-campus by University employees. However, "the question came up that there was not enough data," committee chairperson Elsa Ramsden said. Although the University keeps statistics on the number of employees taking classes at the University, it has no information about the extent to which employees utilize other institutions or would utilize them if they had the availability of tuition subsidies. Because the information is not available, Ramsden said, there is no way to project the possible cost of expanding the program. It is also unclear how much the University could spend on such a program. Currently, the University allows staff members to enroll in two academic courses at the University each semester free of charge. But a Human Resources subcommittee last year studied expanding the program to provide classroom subsidies for employees who are not academically eligible for admission to the University. The current program also does not serve individuals interested in courses not available at the Unviersity. Ramsden said committee members Sandy Smith, Barry Stupine and David Hildebrand volunteered to study three questions relating to the program's possible expansion: who takes classes at other institutions? what kinds of institutions do they attend? and for what reasons they attend other institutions? "I am just getting started," said Smith, an administrative assistant in the Engineering School, who is heading the study. Through the distribution of a survey to University staff members, Smith said, "we would like to know just how great this demand [for an expanded program] would be." Ramsden said this study will be difficult to conduct, and both she and Stupine said they have not speculated on the possible results of the study. "We did not set a firm date [for the study's completion]," Ramsden said. "I expressed a ballpark time frame between three and six months."