Task Force OKs $1,050 Tuition Hike

Completing a semester's worth of discussions and debate, UNC-Chapel Hill's Tuition Task Force in December recommended a three-year, $1,050 tuition increase to alleviate disparities in faculty, staff and teaching assistant salaries and to increase financial aid.

It is unlikely, however, that the plan will come to fruition anytime soon.

UNC-system Board of Governors members have said they expect the board Friday to pass a moratorium on campus-based tuition increases. If this happens, UNC-CH most likely will have to revisit the issue of tuition in a year.

And UNC-CH officials, including task force members, said they don't have any reason to think otherwise.

Still, the group voted 14-1 to send a proposal to Chancellor James Moeser, both as a safeguard and to make a statement.

The recommendation calls for an increase of $350 per year for three years, which would generate about $24 million. Forty percent of that money, or $9.6 million, would go to financial aid for students. It also reserves $1.9 million for TA salary increases, $11.5 million for faculty salary increases and $900,000 for staff salary increases.

Task force members had three options from which to choose, all with increases ranging from $300 to $400 a year. All of them took 40 percent off the top for financial aid, and all had slight variances in how much money would be allocated to boost faculty and TA salaries.

Only the $300 option did not include funds for staff salary increases.

The task force agreed that any excess funds that might occur if governing bodies disallow any of the increase's targeted uses be subtracted from the total increase instead of reallocated to financial aid or TA salaries.

But much of the group's time was spent discussing the validity of using tuition money to fund staff salaries.

The state traditionally is responsible for funding employee salaries, but when UNC-CH's staff received no increases this past fiscal year, officials began debating other options, including student dollars.

Discussions on the matter intensified throughout the semester as some brought up the point that the BOG and the legislature probably never would approve such a use of tuition money.

But many on the task force felt that a message needed to be sent to the state that UNC-CH's needs are not being met.

Anthony Meyer, task force member and a professor in the Department of Surgery, was one of many members on the committee who held that perspective. "Realistically, if we're expecting that money to come from the state, we'll be waiting for a long time," he said.

Others in the group were adamant about the overarching implications of supporting such a proposal.

Michael Papez, a medical student on the task force, worried that for students to be burdened with the cost of staff salaries would indicate a change in UNC-CH's priorities. "I think it would just be a fundamental shift in philosophy if we said we were prepared to fund staff salaries with student tuition money," he said.

Papez ended up casting the sole dissenting vote against the tuition increase package and was one of the only members to suggest that the group not lock itself into a dollar amount but rather outline the University's needs qualitatively.

The group passed its recommendation but opted not to send it to the UNC-CH Board of Trustees this month because the BOG's proposed tuition freeze is likely to pass Friday. Four members, including two trustees, were absent for the task force's vote.

Provost Robert Shelton, who co-chaired the task force, said Monday that though the committee's recommendation is virtually in limbo, he doesn't feel the group's work was in vain. "I was hoping we could move ahead. I still think it was important to go through the exercise."

The University Editor can be reached at udesk@unc.edu.