BOG to Weigh Tuition Increase Requests

During the past few months, boards of trustees at five UNC-system schools have submitted tuition increase requests to UNC-system President Molly Broad.

If the full BOG approves all the tuition increases as is, tuition would be raised $150 at N.C. Agricultural & Technical University, $160 at UNC-Pembroke, $200 for N.C. Central University undergraduates and $288 for N.C. Central graduates. But the biggest increases would be at Appalachian State University and UNC-Greensboro, which have both proposed $300 tuition increases.

The increases will go largely toward increasing faculty salaries and student financial aid.

If the board approves the tuition increases, the N.C. General Assembly still will have to approve the proposal.

BOG member H.D. Reaves, Jr. said board members were split on the tuition increase issue. "I certainly do not expect a unanimous vote," he said. Reaves said he would decide how to vote after listening to the debates on the issue today.

The BOG already approved a 4 percent systemwide inflationary tuition increase last fall.

Broad is not expected to make any recommendations to the board.

But Andrew Payne, the only student representative on the BOG, said he thinks tuition increases have gotten out of hand.

Five other UNC-system schools, including UNC-Chapel Hill and N.C. State University, proposed tuition increases last year, which were approved in a rare split vote.

Payne said he opposes campus-initiated tuition increase requests, a policy that allows UNC-system schools to seek approval for tuition increases. "I don't want campuses to be able to call for tuition increases themselves."

Payne said the UNC-system's tuition-setting policy mandates that tuition increases only be implemented under extraordinary circumstances, which he says do not exist in this situation. "I don't think any of these campuses have met (that standard)."

Student leaders and activists contested the tuition increases last year, holding rallies and lobbying BOG members to build opposition to the increases. But Payne said there was not much resistance to these five tuition increases from student leaders. And the student body presidents at the five schools either supported the increase or had not voted on the issue.

"They had no choice -- either fall behind (other schools) or have a tuition increase."

The State & National Editor can be reached at stntdesk @unc.edu.