N.C. universities face higher tuition

The president of the UNC system is proposing tuition and fee increases that would average about $470 for resident undergraduates across 16 campuses, which he said in a letter made public Wednesday will help stabilize budgets staggered by steep cuts in state funding.

While specific increases vary by school, President Tom Ross is asking the UNC Board of Governors to approve increases for every school in the system for the 2012-2013 school year, followed by increases for all but one, Fayetteville State University, the following year.

“I believe that these recommendations balance the campuses’ demonstrated need for increased resources with the limited ability of many students and families to sustain further tuition increases in this tough economy,” Ross wrote.

The board is scheduled to take up the recommendations at its Feb. 10 meeting.

Under the proposal, tuition and fees for in-state undergraduate students would increase at Winston-Salem State University from $4,513 to $4,960, an increase of 9.9 percent for the 2012-13 school year.

For the 2013-14 school year, students would pay an additional $337 for tuition, a 6.8 percent increase.

At the UNC School of the Arts, tuition and fees would increase from $6,686 to $7,351, an increase of $665, beginning in the fall semester this year. Another $600 would be tacked onto that price for the 2013-14 school year.

UNCSA and WSSU have endured budget cuts, with WSSU losing $31 million in state funding over the past three years and UNCSA losing $10 million in state allocations over the past 10 years.

Last year, the state universities had roughly $414 million cut from their budgets. Ross’ recommendations would generate about $70 million in new revenue.

Students are already seeing the effects of budget cuts in the form of fewer course offerings and larger class sizes, said Josh Martinkovic, the East Carolina University student body president.

“While I think that the tuition increases are going to have a negative impact on the students and families of North Carolina, especially those in the middle class, I don’t think we have many other options we can consider right now,” he said.

Ross said his recommendations were aimed at making the overall increase less than the 9.3 percent hike approved last year, and that no single campus would have an increase above 10 percent.

Seven schools had asked for increases above that amount, requests that Ross pared down in his recommendations. His proposal does include increases of 9.9 percent for five schools, including UNC Chapel Hill, which would see an overall increase of nearly $676 next year.

Ross also recommends a 9.8 percent increase at N.C. State University, or roughly $679 more in tuition and fees, the largest increase in terms of dollars and cents. East Carolina University undergraduates would pay an additional $496 under Ross’ plan, and students at Appalachian State University would pay roughly $506 more.

The lowest increase, both percentagewise and in dollars, would be at UNC Pembroke, where students would see costs go up by $199, or 4.3 percent.

“The guiding principle I followed in developing these recommendations was quite simple,” Ross wrote. “Balance our commitment to maintain the quality of education we offer with our constitutional and moral obligation to provide affordable access to the university, particularly for North Carolina students.”

But the danger of raising tuition rates year after year is precisely that public universities will be out of reach for many North Carolina residents, argued William Johnson, who was chairman of the UNC Board of Governors from 1976 to 1980.

“I did not think it would be likely that it would be zero, but I hoped that it would be substantially less than 8.8 percent,” said Johnson, who along with other former board members had written to the current board, asking them not to increase the cost of attending school. “The bottom line is, it’s going to keep a lot of kids from going to the university.”

Journal reporter Lisa O’Donnell contributed to this story