Tuition talks to involve students

As the Tuition Advisory Task Force moves closer to drafting a proposal for a campus-based tuition increase, Student Body President Seth Dearmin has taken steps to directly involve his constituents in the process.

Student leaders will host a forum at 8 p.m. Thursday in Murphey 116 in an effort to gauge the student body's opinions on tuition.

Dearmin, who co-chairs the tuition task force, said he hopes the forum will familiarize students with the progress made thus far in tuition talks.

"More or less there's a huge disconnect between what members of the task force have and what your average students get to see," he said.

During the last three meetings task force members have overwhelmingly agreed that the campus is in need of the revenue a tuition increase would bring.

Dearmin said he will relay that sentiment to students - that tuition increases might be necessary to maintain UNC's academic excellence.

But he acknowledged that he faces a potential conflict if an overwhelming number of students speak out against any campus-based tuition increases.

As a representative of the student voice, he said he must reflect student opinions.

But he added that he also is obligated to act in their best interests.

"If that happens, we'll come to that bridge when we come to it," he said.

Informing The Daily Tar Heel on Monday night about the forum was the first public announcement of the event, Dearmin said.

But he said he is confident that students still will come out to talk about the potential hikes.

"Tuition is the most relevant issue to students right now," he said, emphasizing that the Board of Trustees is set to discuss tuition at its November meeting.

Much of the discussion at Thursday's forum will be devoted to what is talked about at today's tuition task force meeting, Dearmin said.

During the past weeks, task force members have focused on empirical data to better acquaint themselves with the issues of tuition and University finance.

Today, however, the task force will see for the first time specific proposals for tuition increases.

"So now that we're at the part where we're talking about tangible facts and figures, we want to relay that to students," Dearmin said.

Dearmin met Monday with Provost Robert Shelton, the task force's other co-chairman, to draft numbers for a tuition hike.

The proposals are meant to incite discussion among task force members, and they demonstrate a number of possibilities, said task force member Mike Brady, who sat in with Dearmin and Shelton when drafting the proposals.

"What we have drawn up are more of the extremes as far as what would be the minimal increase needed to accomplish our goals of raising (teaching assistant) stipends and what would be the 'deep pockets approach,'" said Brady, who is president of the Graduate and Professional Student Federation.

In the past meetings, the task force has devoted most of its attention to the needs of graduate and professional students, a group that largely was left out of tuition discussions in recent years.

When applying to continue their education, prospective graduate students consider more than just the tuition at a college or university, task force members say.

Those students also take into account the benefits provided, such as the availability of assistantship positions.

Because graduate students are often financially independent, they often must serve as research or teaching assistants to mitigate the impact of tuition.

But UNC is falling behind in providing these benefits, many in the task force say, and the University could become less attractive to top graduate students.

The task force has discovered, however, that improving graduate students' benefits is more easily said than done.

The tuition and benefits vary widely among the University's numerous graduate and professional schools.

In light of this, Brady said he is intrigued to see how the task force will react to the proposed increases during today's meeting.

"It should be a very interesting discussion," he said. "I think that it will really give us the opportunity to see where people's priorities are."

 

Contact the University Editor at udesk@unc.edu.