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The Daily Tar Heel

Tuition and Fee Advisory Task Force discusses business school fee

The Tuition and Fee Advisory Task Force (TFAT) tried to come to a consensus on the recommendations of the Student Fee Advisory Subcommittee (SFAS) at its Wednesday meeting. Members discussed the Kenan-Flagler Business School fee, which the subcommittee had not recommended.

What happened?

TFAT had its third and final meeting before the Board of Trustees hears the decisions that were made in three areas — fees, school-based tuition and campus-based tuition.

Who spoke?

Brian Smith, assistant vice chancellor for finance and accounting, said SFAS supports the expansion, career placement and diversity goals of the business school, but SFAS members are concerned about the precedent of establishing a student fee in general support of an academic program and administration.

“The areas where SFAS did have concerns felt like, a little bit — that with this particular fee, a lot of it was supporting some administrative cost and using a student fee to support general programmatic or administrative cost,” he said. 

Harry Edwards, student body treasurer, said 605 students gave student government feedback on the business school fee. 

“The feedback we collected on the whole was pretty negative,” he said. “I think about 71 percent of the students were opposed to the fee, even though it would give them a greater chance of them getting into the business school.”

Edwards said feedback results were compared based on perspectives, including out-of-state students and demographic characteristics. He said the subcommittee felt those who approved the fee were those who would not have a problem paying.

Smith said although there’s an agreement on expanding the number of people the business school can admit, there is a disagreement about the cost.

“We really don’t feel like it needs to cost $3,000 for a student to pay per year to expand class size,” he said.

Provost Jim Dean said since only some members of the task force are in favor of the business school fee, there is not a consensus. 

Sandra Hoeflich, associate dean for Interdisciplinary Education, Fellowships and Communication in the Graduate School, said she wanted the graduate students' tuition increases to be looked at in both resident and nonresident students.

“There is an issue with graduate tuition that doesn’t exist with undergraduate,” she said. “The graduate pays the difference between in-state and out-of-state.”

Dean said the consensus surrounding the issue was to have a proposal making the revenue neutral. The task force agreed there should be a $300 tuition increase for all graduate students instead of a $193 increase for residents and a $537 increase for nonresidents.

university@dailytarheel.com

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