The facts: The Board of Governors has approved an 8.8 percent increase to tuition; however the General Assembly is the last to review the increase before it passes.
Our opinion: Rather than raise the rate of the increase, like last year, the General Assembly should advocate for their constituents—the students—and keep their education affordable.
The North Carolina Board of Governors approved an 8.8 percent tuition increase Friday morning, increasing tuition by $400 across the UNC System. The increase was approved by the Board of Governors, but the General Assembly has the final say on the increase; they should be strongly encouraged to not fall into their pattern of increasing the cost to compensate for the lack of funding they give to the schools.
The option the General Assembly is approached with is either to decrease the projected increase, approve the current rate or, the most likely option, raise it. Last year, they choose to not only increase it, but go as far as to tack on an extra $900 to students’ tuition bills. This type of action should not happen this year.
UNC System President, Thomas Ross, advocated for a 9.8 percent increase, a mere .2 percent lower than the 10 percent cap. Even though the Board of Governors rejected this type of increase, the General Assembly has the power—which it has used before—to further subject students to compensate for the lack of allocated funding from budget cuts. What they don’t understand is the difficulty it is to currently attend Universities, which falls under our State’s constitution regarding public education.
Public education, including the University level, is meant to be affordable for students and their families. N.C . State of all the institutions is the supposed to be the most affordable for students, being a land-grant institution; however, currently this is not the case. Of the 17 UNC schools, we have the highest tuition.
While we understand the cost to run a university of our caliber, the amount of money students pay should not be a way to compensate for the loss of state funding.
The soon to be working class will never be able to contribute to our state with education debts looming over them post-graduation. These types of future ramifications do not seem to be taken into consideration when discussing the increase of tuition.
While the General Assembly should be held accountable for merely approving the 8.8 percent increase, not raising the rate, as students our responsibility is to let our voices be heard. The legislators cannot understand the impact of these increases if we don’t tell them the difficulty arising from the increase. Let your story be heard.
Students from all across North Carolina are affected by these increases. The General Assembly should listen to them and take action for them. By approving the rate they are making the statement they care about the cost of education, as well as getting on the good side of potential voters. They should make our education as affordable as they can.
