The University of North Carolina system’s Board of Governors rejected a tuition increase for in-state students Friday, despite requests for the hike by chancellors and trustees at UNC’s 16 campuses looking to boost faculty recruitment and retention.
The tuition shift, which was proposed by the schools’ Boards of Trustees last week, focused on separate increases for students from in and out of state—$200 and $950, respectively, at UNC-Chapel Hill. But after Gov. Mike Easley (D) released a statement to the UNC Board of Governors Thursday strongly denouncing the hike, the Board decided to freeze the in-state tuition increase and defer action on tuition for out-of-state students until March.
“I’m disappointed with the decision.” said James Moeser, chancellor of UNC-Chapel Hill. “I think it very well could decrease the [quality] of our education.”
Richard Williams, the chairman of the Board of Trustees at Chapel Hill, said Easley’s position had too great an influence on the Board of Governors, whose decision he thinks puts UNC at risk of “a loss of tremendous quality” in its faculty.
“I think it’s short-sighted and political,” he said. “I don’t think the new decision is in the best interest of the campus.”
Ray Farris, a member of the Board of Governors, agreed that UNC-Chapel Hill needed more financial assistance to remain a competitive research university, but he argued that the school should look to state funding instead.
“You can’t treat all campuses the same way,” he said. “Some of the other North Carolina universities do not face that challenge.”
Farris said the most important factor in the Board’s decision was the current state of the economy, especially given that the system has raised tuition more in the past seven years than ever before.
Members of the Board surveyed the system’s campuses since December to find out whether the increase was feasible, and despite proposals from 15 of the schools searching for a new funding flow, the multiple Boards of Trustees and government wrangling cluttered the potential change.
Easley has pledged to take into account the financial needs of some of the campuses in his budget recommendations to the state legislature, but any decision on state funding will not be reached until July.
“The process is more complicated here than at Duke, because we have not only trustees but also a Board of Governors, which is more similar to Duke’s trustees,” said Judith Wenger, chair of the faculty at UNC-Chapel Hill.
Despite Easley’s warning that a tuition hike for locals would not “maintain the goodwill of the people,” Farris held that the Board of Governors still had the final call. “I think many followed his view, but the Board members already wanted this action to be taken,” he said.
An increase for out-of-state students, however, remains a distinct possibility. There have been debates as to whether it would be fair to raise tuition for out-of-state students so soon after freezing the hike on North Carolinians, but talks will resume in March.
“If I were a betting man,” Williams said, “I would bet for a tuition hike for out-of-state students.”
Farris pointed to the taxes in-state students’ families pay to North Carolina as reason enough for an out-of-state hike. He added that any imbalance between two pools of students might not make for a noticeable gap, though Moeser and Wegner called for a re-thinking of the delicate situation.
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