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SOURCE: News & Observer Editorial
11.05.07
Tuition: Hold It
An education at one of North Carolina's 16 public campuses remains, relatively speaking, a pretty good buy for students and parents in the state. But in the last decade, boards of trustees and the University of North Carolina system Board of Governors, facing what they saw as the need for more revenue, have boosted tuition and fees at a tremendous rate. This would be a good year to hold the line.
The General Assembly gave the system an astonishing increase in appropriations -- 10.6 percent. And, lawmakers took $35 million from the state's escheats fund (basically, unclaimed money from a variety of places) and put it into financial aid.
The system's president, Erskine Bowles, says he expects any tuition increases to be low. But Bowles should be proactive on this issue, working with chancellors to ensure that there are no increases for in-state students. Most parents understand that a university education is indeed an investment, but North Carolina is not a high-income state, and many families even in the middle class are struggling these days.
More questions are being raised of late about college expenses in general. Congress, for example, is looking at why costs have continued to rise at elite private schools with large endowments.
A good year for the UNC system such as this one is a chance for the system's schools to make a gesture of appreciation to in-state families, by holding tuition and fees where they are to give those families just a little breathing room.
