In a year of financial strain, any of Wednesday’s proposed tuition increases would be painful.
But the proposal which includes raising the resident tuition by 6.5 percent and the nonresident tuition by 5.6 percent is the fairest option.
UNC-system president Erskine Bowles has said that universities in the system should prepare to cut their budgets by at least 10 percent, so the deficit needs to be made up somehow.
The 6.5 percent tuition increase is the highest allowed by the UNC-system, and each proposal suggests raising the tuition by at least 5.6 percent. Without a significant increase in revenue from tuition, UNC would have to make even more drastic cuts in faculty and programs. If there was ever a time to take the plunge in raising tuition costs, it would be now.
The proposal with differing rates represents a happy medium between the other two proposals on the table.
Instead of raising resident and nonresident tuition by the same percentage, the difference in percentages would help manage the large gap between tuition rates for residents and nonresidents, while still ensuring that nonresidents bear a higher increase.
The proposal with differing rates may not be politically feasible. UNC is a public university. With this in mind, tuition for residents must be kept as cheap as possible, which is why a higher percentage increase for resident tuition is questionable.
But the disparity between resident and nonresident tuition costs must be managed. Equal percentage increases ignores this concern and saddles out-of-state students with a disproportionately growing burden.
Each proposal has its own advantages and risks.
