Fitzsimon File

The UNC Board of Governors will consider tuition increases at its February meeting, a situation that arises during every state budget crisis. Officials at UNC-Chapel Hill want a hike of 6.5 percent, N.C. State leaders are asking for a 3.6 percent increase and N.C. Central wants to raise tuition 3.1 percent. 

The state faces a shortfall in next year’s budget that could reach $3 billion and university officials want students to pay more to help balance the state budget, despite a provision in the state constitution that says that higher education should be “as free as practicable.”

If past budget crises are any indication, members of the Board of Governors will all say they wish they didn’t have to raise tuition and they will remind us that the law requires that 25 percent of the money raised will pay for financial aid to soften the blow for poor families.

Another 25 percent must go toward faulty salaries, leaving the campuses free to use only half of the revenue the tuition increases bring in. Students will protest the tuition increase in the media and maybe even at the meeting. Board members will praise the student leaders for exercising their rights and then vote to raise tuition anyway and claim they really have no choice.

But that’s not true. There are at least three things the Board of Governors and other higher education leaders should do this year instead of asking state lawmakers to make families pay more to send their kids to college in the midst of the worst economic crisis in 75 years.

First, they should loudly call for repeal of the provision snuck in the state budget a few years ago that gave  university booster clubs a windfall by allowing out of state athletes to pay in-state tuition, a move that cost the taxpayers $10 million a year.

Legislation to repeal the booster club bonanza passed the House last session 93-13, but the Senate never took it up. UNC President Erskine Bowles has said he opposes the provision, but has yet to publicly ask for its repeal.

The proposed tuition increase at UNC-Chapel Hill would raise just over $7 million. The hike requested by N.C. State would bring in $3.5 million. That’s a total of $10.5 million, roughly the same amount the athletic booster clubs at the two campuses together receive from the in-state tuition provision for athletes.

There is no need to raise tuition at all if lawmakers will simply stop giving the booster clubs a $10 million break every year.  That would mean confronting the political action committees formed by the wealthy interests who support the two universities and pushed for the in-state tuition provision.

Citizens for Higher Education is the PAC funded by UNC-Chapel Hill supporters and it raised $641,000 this election cycle and gave $485,000 to legislative campaigns. N.C. State's version of the influence buyers is called the University Development Coalition. It collected $126,000 this election cycle and made $100,000 in campaign contributions.

Reportedly, the Senate leadership has already decided on three of the 8 people the Senate will elect to the Board of Governors this session. One is UNC-Chapel Hill trustee Paul Fulton, who just happens to head Citizens for Higher Education. Another is Burley Mitchell, former Chief Justice of the North Carolina Supreme Court. Mitchell is in charge of the University Development Coalition at N.C. State. 

The Board of Governors should also call for an end to the non-need based tuition credits paid to private colleges and universities..  Almost $100 million of taxpayer money goes to private colleges every year through two programs, the State Contractual Scholarship Funds, which is need-based, and the North Carolina Legislative Tuition Grant, which is not.

The state gives $1,950 to every private college or university in the state for every North Carolina student who attends, whether they need help with tuition or not. That part of the private college subsidy cost $55 million in 2008 and went to small, modest schools and wealthy schools alike.

Duke received $1.7 million of state taxpayer money in the last fiscal year, Campbell just over $5 million. Lawmakers don’t have to raise tuition at public universities if they simply stop subsidizing private schools, some of whom have massive private endowments.

Finally, higher education leaders should join the growing chorus of voices calling on lawmakers to raise new revenues as part of a plan to balance the budget. It is impossible to address a $3 billion shortfall with cuts alone without devastating the fundamental institutions of the state, including the universities.

Let’s stop helping out well-connected booster clubs and wealthy private schools. That would both protect North Carolina families and live up to the wise words in the state constitution. 

 

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This entry was posted on Tuesday, January 13th, 2009 at 4:54 pm and is filed under Fitzsimon File. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed.