About 30 student protesters marched from the Pit to the UNC-system Board of Governors meeting Friday, determined to bring attention to how students could be affected by budget cuts and tuition hikes. Board members voted to eliminate 60 degree programs systemwide and increase tuition by an average of $208 for undergraduate in-state students in an effort to offset the expected decrease in state funding.
Students who are married might qualify for more financial benefits, including improved need-based financial aid and in-state tuition. This does not immediately translate to in-state residency for UNC students. But married students do not have to include their parents’ income as their own on FAFSA forms, she said, which might help with financial aid.
With a Republican dominated legislature ready to slash higher education funding, university-system officials are under pressure to salvage sources of financial aid. The UNC-system Board of Governors met Thursday and approved tuition hikes averaging $200 for university system campuses next year.
As further state budget cuts loom over the University, student body president candidates are preparing for the inevitable. The candidates all have their sights on softening potential tuition hikes and examining student fees so students get the most of what they are paying for.
A 2004 law giving out-of-state students on full scholarship in-state status for tuition purposes could be repealed, which would put an extra $7 million burden on UNC.Administrators say that if the legislature rescinds the law, the University could lack the funds to recruit the top quality out-of-state students it has in the past.
Students officially have less time to appeal for in-state residency — and may find residency harder to prove — thanks to an updated state residency manual.
As the University system prepares for one of its toughest years in history, its Board of Governors today will tackle two big issues facing students — the rising cost of tuition and the depleting funds for financial aid.
It appeared as though the University would be forced to swallow another round of cuts, to chip away at course offerings, jobs and even financial aid.
Universities across the UNC system are proposing tuition hikes well above the average in response to the state’s expected $3.5 billion budget shortfall. And with the change in control of the N.C. General Assembly, the final cost, as well as where the revenue from the increases will go, remains unknown.
The recommendation calls for the maximum permissible increase for students and must receive approval from the UNC-system Board of Governors and the N.C. General Assembly. The hike will be applied across the board, though there is no cap for out-of-state students tuition increase.
Chancellor Holden Thorp recommended that the maximum allowed tuition increase come before the Board of Trustees today. In making his selection, Thorp cited the difficult economic and political climate as reasons for his decision to pass over at least two other proposals that would have lessened the burden on some students.
A provision in the revised UNC-system tuition policy could allow universities to increase tuition above the set limits, but administrators are still unsure how those requests for increases will be handled. The current plan caps tuition increases for resident undergraduate students at 6.5 percent, and the revised policy will continue that limit while giving campuses an opportunity to increase tuition more than the cap in extenuating circumstances.
Faced with a $3.5 billion state budget shortfall and an anticipated $54 million in cuts to the University, student government is seeking to measure just how much students think their bills should rise. It is doing so by conducting an online survey that asks for students’ opinions on how they want the University to deal with imminent budget cuts.
UNC’s tuition policy-making body approved three different increase recommendations Wednesday, each of which would raise undergraduate tuition by at least 5.6 percent, or about $250 for residents and $1,300 for non-residents.
Chancellor Holden Thorp said administrators are unsure of how Republicans will form their leadership and craft the state budget, but that the University is preparing for significant cuts from the state — a move that could force the school to consider dramatically raising tuition to private-school levels or reducing services offered.
Administrators will consider devoting a portion of revenue generated from the 2011-12 tuition increase to raising salaries for faculty, who haven’t seen increases in several years as a result of financial cutbacks. Salaries of state employees have been frozen by the state since early 2009. Executive Vice Chancellor and Provost Bruce Carney has proposed allocating about $2.5 million of the approximately $15 million in tuition revenue toward raising salaries for faculty members on a merit basis.
Fluctuating tuition from UNC-CH’s peer institutions might soon have a bigger impact on the University. The UNC-system Board of Governors will review peer institutions for schools in the UNC system in the spring, and administrators say this reevaluation might give more leeway in increasing tuition.
RALEIGH — Students at UNC-system schools with the highest tuition rates, including UNC-CH, could receive less need-based financial aid from the state as early as next year, officials said Tuesday in a presentation to legislators in the N.C. General Assembly.
The UNC-system Association of Student Governments has a lot more work to do, judging from its recent recommendations for the Four Year Tuition Plan.
Tuesday, student leaders from across the state presented the UNC-system Board of Governors with a rough draft of a tuition policy they want the board to consider.
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