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Legislature split on UNC-system cuts

New budget may force growth cap

The N.C. House and Senate are on opposite ends when it comes to sparing cuts to the UNC system.

The House recommended capping the system’s enrollment growth at 1 percent as well as cutting the budget by $175 million — more than twice the Senate’s recommended cut of $54 million.

Once the full House votes on the budget at the end of the week, both the House and the Senate will conference to decide whether the UNC system will lose 1,700 positions and 2,200 potential students in 2011, or suffer a less drastic cut to its classrooms and its commitment to college access.

UNC-system Vice President for State Government Relations Anita Watkins has been lobbying the legislature during the short session, arguing that the system can’t afford to cap enrollment growth, an unexpected measure that hasn’t been suggested in years.

“If it was capped based on the number of students that have been admitted for August 2010, about half of the additional students that will be enrolled this year would be denied admission in 2011 if the numbers were the same,” Watkins said.

While Watkins is talking to as many House members as she can to gain support against the enrollment cap, the UNC system would have to engage support against it in the Senate as well if it passes the full House vote on Friday.

“Historically, the full General Assembly has been supportive of the University system,” Watkins said.

“But we have not talked to the Senate about whether or not they would accept an enrollment cap at this point.”

Tony Foriest, co-chairman of the Senate subcommittee for appropriations on education, said he expects the provision to be debated in the conference where appointed representatives and senators work out the differences between the two versions of the budget.

“We obviously have a fundamental difference with the House,” Foriest said.

“(The enrollment cap) will probably make it to the conference … if the House feels strongly about it,” he said. “The Senate, again from my perspective, just doesn’t think that’s the way to go forward as far as limiting that growth.”

Foriest said an enrollment cap would only hurt the future of the state from an economic standpoint.

“We’re trying to position ourselves so that when we come out of this bad economy we have a firm foundation to stand on, and it seems that if you start the precedent of, ‘Well the economy’s bad so we’re not going to educate as many people,’ that’s not the way to go,” Foriest said.

UNC-system President Erskine Bowles echoed that sentiment in a response to the cuts the House recommended last week.

“In the long term, this budget would have significant adverse effects on the state’s economy and the prosperity of all North Carolinians,” Bowles stated in a press release.

“We must have an educated workforce to attract the jobs of the future in a knowledge-based global economy.”

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

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