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SOURCE: Daily Tarheel
02.12.07
System board OKs all tuition increases
By: Eric Johnson, Senior Writer
GREENSBORO - Student opposition and an admittedly flawed process were not enough to stop UNC-Chapel Hill's out-of-state tuition hike.
On Friday the UNC-system Board of Governors approved a $1,250 increase for nonresident undergraduates, even while acknowledging that campus trustees had subverted a proper tuition debate.
The board's decision ultimately rested on the fact that the University needs the funding, and out-of-state students are able to pay.
"The process, I strongly disagree with," UNC-system President Erskine Bowles said. "But this is a need-based decision."
Increases of $250 for resident undergraduates and $500 for graduate students passed with no debate, but board members discussed the out-of-state proposal for more than twenty minutes.
Bowles told board members that he had spoken with Chancellor James Moeser and is satisfied that the added revenue from out-of-state students is needed to bolster faculty salaries. He also pointed out that UNC-CH remains the best bargain in America for nonresidents.
What Bowles could not explain - and what student leaders sought to highlight - is how University trustees arrived at the $1,250 figure. The campus tuition and fee advisory task force recommended an increase of $500, which trustees discarded in favor of their own proposal.
"The tuition task force had faculty members, it had the chancellor, and it had the student body president," said Ray Farris, the only BOG member to vote against the University's nonresident increase.
"I prefer their judgment over the trustees' judgment in this particular matter."
Everyone from Bowles and Moeser to the trustees themselves have vowed to make changes to the campus tuition process, with the goal of avoiding frustration on the part of students and faculty who saw their input overruled this year.
But the underlying equation - a University with ongoing financial needs and below-market rate tuition - is likely to drive nonresident increases for years to come. University officials estimate that nonresident rates could rise more than $6,000 before having an effect on the applicant pool.
"I think that what we found today is there are people of the opinion that as long as money can buy things, a tuition increase is justified," Student Body President James Allred said.
The point of having an in-depth campus tuition process is to decide how much of additional funding should come from students, as opposed to from taxpayer dollars and other sources, Allred said.
"We can open up a bottomless pit of need," he said. "That doesn't justify raising as much money as possible from students."
Along with tuition and fee hikes at UNC-CH, the BOG gave unanimous approval to increases at all 16 system schools.
This marks the first time board members have considered campus proposals since implementing a four-year tuition policy in October.
That policy includes an annual ceiling of 6.5 percent increases for resident undergraduates, with the expectation of swift approval for campus requests within that margin.
Fourteen schools requested and received increases of 5 percent or more, suggesting that campus administrators plan to take full advantage of the board's promise.
BOG chairman Jim Phillips said board members trusted Bowles to evaluate every proposal to ensure there was justification.
"The president's staff thoroughly scrubbed those requests," Phillips said. "As a result, I think the president's recommendation carried much weight."
