Tuition debate resonates with BOG

Tuition autonomy might be dead at the table, but the issue of how to fund the state’s leading research institutions is very much alive.

And the action that prompted the summer’s tuition tiff — a campus-based tuition freeze advocated by Board of Governors Chairman Brad Wilson — most likely will not be repeated this year.

“The needs of the university have increased, and the (N.C.) General Assembly has not been in a position to address all of the needs that I think the university is going to have to attend to this year,” Wilson said. “Therefore, I would expect that there will be campus-based tuition increases in some amount.”

A Senate provision supported by President Pro Tem Marc Basnight, D-Dare, would have allowed the boards of trustees at UNC-Chapel Hill and N.C. State University to set their own tuition rates, bypassing the Board of Governors. Some leaders, including Basnight, have said the summer-long fight for tuition control served a purpose, even if the provision fell flat.

Senate Majority Leader Tony Rand, D-Cumberland, an ardent supporter of UNC-CH, said the debate brought much more attention to the issue of competitiveness of faculty salaries, particularly at the state’s research universities.

“We need to do a better job, and so we’ve called attention to it,” he said. “If (tuition autonomy) is not the way to do it, then we want to know what is the plan.”

But Wilson said the problem lies in the university’s ability to explain to legislators what the BOG is doing on behalf of UNC-CH and NCSU.

The governors regularly request faculty salary hikes far higher than the assembly eventually enacts.

This year, the BOG’s budget request called for a 7.5 percent increase in faculty salaries, Wilson said. The legislature approved an increase of only 2 percent or $850, whichever is greater.

Wilson’s goal this year is to make sure legislators are aware of BOG policies and actions from the start.

“We’re going to err on the side of more communication, rather than less,” Wilson said. “We need to communicate more regularly with the members of the General Assembly, the leadership and the staff of the leadership to let them know … what proposals are being considered.”

Reframing tuition

The BOG always has recognized the unique needs of UNC-CH and NCSU, including the need to keep faculty salaries competitive, Wilson said. But getting that message out to the public has been challenging.

“The Board of Governors has been raising its voice on the faculty salary issue for a long time, requesting both across-the-board increases for all faculty at all campuses and a supplemental appropriation to address the unique needs of the research institutions,” he said.

Wilson faulted the advocacy of UNC-CH’s political action committee, Citizens for Higher Education, for inaccurately framing the issue by placing the blame on the BOG. Saying the board ignored research institutions by freezing campus-based tuition is wrong, he said.

But Paul Rizzo, former dean of UNC-CH’s Kenan-Flagler Business School and a PAC member, said the board did in fact ignore the needs of UNC-CH and NCSU.

He also said concerns that tuition autonomy could harm the UNC system were outweighed by the potential benefits.

“The importance of UNC-Chapel Hill and N.C. State to both the state as well as these communities is such that something needed to be done,” Rizzo said. “And if the system couldn’t survive that, then, in my view, it’s very fragile.”

He added that he, too, hopes the debate will spark a change of attitude. And he might get his wish.

At the BOG’s August meeting, Wilson appointed a tuition task force to examine the board’s tuition policy, giving special attention to the needs of UNC-CH and NCSU. The chairmen of both universities’ boards of trustees are members.

Hannah Gage, co-chairwoman of the task force, said she plans to come up with parameters that universities can follow when considering campus-based tuition requests.

The parameters would be similar to the tuition policy created by UNC-CH’s trustees that requires tuition to stay in the bottom quartile of peer institutions, Gage said.

She added that much of the dissatisfaction among university officials rested with the uncertainty surrounding campus-based tuition for much of the year.

“They did all the things we told them to do, and then we said we weren’t going to increase tuition,” she said. “We said that in the beginning, but hope springs eternal.”

University officials won’t have to do much hoping this year, though. Unless extraordinary circumstances allow the legislature to give universities more funding, a tuition increase will be undeniable, Gage said.

The Research Question

House Speaker Jim Black, D-Mecklenburg, said in July that tuition autonomy should not be reserved to UNC-CH and NCSU, but instead should include East Carolina University, UNC-Greensboro and UNC-Charlotte.

But tuition autonomy was considered exclusively for the state’s research-extensive universities. Both ECU and UNC-G are research-intensive. UNC-C doesn’t hold either distinction. Schools are categorized based on the Carnegie Classification system.

Wilson said Black wasn’t lumping other schools in with UNC-CH and NCSU, only trying to give them the same chance.

“Does the UNC-Charlotte board (of trustees) not have the same capability of determining the needs of their campus?” Wilson said.

And although they have unique and sometimes greater needs, research universities are relying too much on tuition, he said.

“We can’t raise tuition fast enough and high enough to solve the resource issues for either Carolina or State or any of the other 14,” he said.

But the state government’s share of system funding is decreasing, said Jerry Lucido, UNC-CH vice provost for admissions and enrollment management. “The reason there is so much pressure on tuition is that these other areas are playing a smaller role."

Wilson said legislators, in the end, made the right decision. “The General Assembly has decided that tuition autonomy is not in the best interest of the universities, and the Board of Governors believes that that was a very wise decision.”

Contact the State & National Editor at stntdesk@unc.edu.