BOG to Hash Out Tuition Concerns

Some BOG members and student leaders have criticized the UNC system's tuition policy, which allows campus-initiated requests in "emergency" situations, for being too vague.

Addison Bell, chairman of the BOG Budget and Finance Committee, said today's tuition policy workshop will serve as forum to discuss tuition-related issues.

Bell said BOG members will examine requests from campuses that have passed one-year tuition increase proposals.

The UNC-Chapel Hill Board of Trustees approved a $400 tuition increase in January. About three-fourths of the UNC-system campuses are expected to bring campus-initiated tuition increase requests before the BOG this year.

BOG member Ray Farris said the board members must carefully examine the tuition increase requests, partly because of Gov. Mike Easley's announcement Tuesday that state agencies would face wide budget cuts to help combat a $900 million deficit.

"We'll be receiving less money from the legislature, which puts us in a very tough situation when examining these requests," Farris said.

Farris said campuses that are asking for a campus-initiated tuition increase for the first time will have a better chance of persuading the board.

But Bell said the BOG will not make a decision on requests tomorrow.

He said board members will continue to examine tuition-increase proposals at a Budget and Finance Committee meeting Feb. 19 and vote on the individual requests in either March or April.

Today, the BOG will also discuss a five-year tuition policy program that Bell proposed at the January BOG meeting.

The five-year program would require all 16 UNC-system campuses, along with the BOG, to coordinate their long-term tuition policies.

Bell said he hopes the BOG will have a solid five-year plan by the end of the summer. He said he will put forth a motion today to start the plan in the fall of 2002.

Anything other than basic discussion of the five-year plan will have to wait until schools submit their individual five-year tuition plans, he said. "We have to have policy information from all the schools in the system before we make any solid plans," Bell said.

But BOG members have mixed feelings about the proposed five-year tuition strategy.

Andrew Payne, a non-voting BOG member and president of the UNC Association of Student Governments, said he supports the idea of long-range tuition planning.

Payne said he will also discuss a set of ASG tuition policy recommendations, which include the adoption of guidelines governing student consultation on tuition issues and a standard tuition rate for campuses in the same institutional category.

Payne will join the workshop via teleconference from Miami. He said two student body presidents, Justin Young from UNC-CH and Darryl Willie from N.C. State University, are slated to attend the meeting in person in Payne's place.

But although BOG member Brad Adcock said he supports the proposed five-year plan, he said the BOG needs to consider that events could happen outside the plan. "If we have a five-year plan that shows little or no increase, but then we have to raise tuition, what does that say?"

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