BOG Examines Tuition Policy, Plans for Future Increases

The BOG approved a resolution Friday calling for a vote on campus-initiated tuition increase requests at its March meeting and requiring all 16 UNC-system schools to create five-year plans for tuition and fees, starting with the 2003-04 school year.

The board also officially decided to re-examine its tuition-setting policy.

The BOG's existing policy was first established in 1998 and was modified by the N.C. General Assembly last summer.

Several BOG members and student leaders have repeatedly charged that the BOG was not following its own policy of granting tuition increases only in "exceptional situations."

The BOG has approved tuition increases at 11 UNC-system schools during the last two years.

The state legislature approved a change to the policy this summer, allowing schools to request tuition increases without showing extraordinary need.

The BOG is responsible for setting tuition rates for UNC-system schools.

About a half-dozen UNC-system schools, including UNC-Chapel Hill, are expected to bring tuition requests before the board this year.

The BOG is also expected to vote on a 4.8 percent across-the-board tuition increase at its March meeting.

Friday's discussion on tuition -- which was the first time the full board discussed tuition at length during the 2001-02 academic year -- was prompted by a tuition workshop hosted by the BOG Budget and Finance Committee on Friday morning and also by committee Chairman Addison Bell's proposal for the five-year tuition plans.

Bell said the plans aim to provide more predictability for students but will simply serve as guidelines, not as binding documents.

"Every year we are putting out a fire," Bell said. "Every year we run down to the wire without providing the chancellors with any kind of guidance for the future."

Bell's plan also calls for all the UNC-system schools to work together in generating their tuition plans to ensure that there are no wide disparities in tuition between similar institutions.

Bell's proposal originally called for the plans to go into effect next year.

But several BOG members said individual chancellors could not create the plans in such a short time and that the process would be further complicated by the BOG's review of its own policy.

"I don't know how the chancellors can come back to us with a plan for the future when they don't know what the policy is going to be," said BOG member Jim Phillips.

At one point BOG Chairman Ben Ruffin suggested that the proposal be taken off the table and sent back to committee.

But a proposed amendment, which pushed the plans back one year, alleviated the concerns of most BOG members, and the measure passed unanimously.

During the workshop on tuition that preceded the meeting, board members took the first step in revising the BOG's tuition policy.

Discussion at the workshop revolved around the role tuition will play in funding the UNC system, especially considering the state's economic problems.

"We may have to do something with tuition (this spring) that shouldn't act as a precedent for next year or long term," said BOG member and former Gov. Jim Holshouser.

"It would be tragic if we buried our heads in the sand."

But BOG member William Burns said the board must continue to put pressure on legislators to provide funding for higher education and avoid relying too much on revenue generated by tuition.

Burns said, "The legislature needs to know that this is a public institution, and they need to fund it."

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