13 UNC Campuses Seek Tuition Hike

Twelve other UNC-system schools have now formulated plans for campus-based tuition increases. East Carolina University is the first system school to approve a tuition increase after UNC-CH. ECU's BOT passed a $400 increase Thursday at a special meeting, and the UNC-Charlotte BOT also is slated to vote on an increase identical to UNC-CH's.

Officials at N.C. State University also recently announced that they will consider tuition increases, although they have not provided a specific amount.

Several UNC-system schools have already submitted tuition increase proposals to the UNC-system Board of Governors. The BOG will vote on each school's tuition increase request, in addition to a possible 4.8 percent systemwide tuition increase, at their March 6 meeting.

The tuition increases arrive on the heels of a BOG request last month for all 16 UNC-system schools to construct five-year plans for tuition and fees -- starting with the 2003-04 academic year.

A key component of the request is that similar universities within the UNC system cooperate when constructing their plan, something UNC-system schools currently aren't required to do.

BOG member Bradley Wilson said the BOG is only accepting one-year tuition increase plans. Lengthier plans would interfere with new tuition and finance policies created by the five-year plan, he said.

Wilson added that the BOG expected the numerous requests for tuition increases. "We've expected for a while all of the schools in the system that had not recently asked for an increase to ask for one."

BOG member Ray Farris said the schools would have asked for tuition increases even without the five-year plan looming on the horizon.

"If there was no five-year plan, these institutions would have asked for a tuition increase anyway," he said. "Instead of a one-year increase, they would have asked for an increase over two or three years."

Stick Williams, vice chairman of the UNC-CH BOT, said reactions of other universities were not an issue when deciding to raise UNC-CH's tuition."When discussing raising tuition rates, we don't talk about other schools," Williams said. "We're under the impression that other schools do exactly what we do and formulate tuition policies in their own interests."

But UNC-system Association of Student Governments President Andrew Payne said UNC-system schools are "hopping on the tuition bandwagon" because of UNC-CH's recent tuition increase. He said UNC-system schools are trying to get as much money as possible before the five-year plan could be enacted.

Payne said if schools really needed the money, they would have initiated tuition increase requests months ago rather than in the last couple of weeks.

He said Elizabeth City State University, Fayetteville State University, N.C. Agricultural & Technical State University and Winston-Salem State University are the exceptions to the trend. Payne said they should be allowed tuition increases because they have not asked for any in the last two years.

"These tuition increases -- it's a cat-and-mouse game," he said. "Because Chapel Hill passed one, these other schools feel like they have to have one too."

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