Keeping UNC institutions within reach

Published December 16, 2014

Editorial by Burlington Times-News, December 15, 2014.

After a short reprieve from tuition hikes, students at the University of North Carolina will pay more next year and the year after. The interim chancellor called the proposed increase “modest.” But that “modest” increase is significant to students and their families struggling to pay ever-increasing college costs.

In a day and time when salaries remain in a deep freeze, every nickel and dime counts.

Many of the increases students are seeing are being fueled by cuts in state funding for higher education. The recession is over, but our acclaimed public universities are still being squeezed. The academic scandal that hit the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill is a major black eye, but is not representative of the quality that North Carolina’s public universities strive to achieve. However, if cuts are allowed to gnaw away at classes and positions, the reputation of the UNC system eventually will suffer well beyond the damage done by the so-called paper classes at UNC Chapel Hill.

North Carolina’s flagship university is known as “the university of the people.” Its mission is to provide a quality college education to the state’s residents, and it has been doing just that since the institution opened in 1795. The system has since expanded to include 17 campuses. These institutions have educated many young men and women who used their acquired knowledge and skills to help better the state.

By making cuts and raising prices, we also are mortgaging our future by making that education less accessible for at least some people. Our state constitution makes it clear that affordability is a priority in higher education:

“The General Assembly shall provide that the benefits of The University of North Carolina and other public institutions of higher education, as far as practicable, be extended to the people of the State free of expense.”

No matter how you slice it, $4,026 a year — not counting student fees — is far from free.

Financial aid can make a difference in some cases, but it is not sufficient to help all who need it. Our universities are still considered a best buy in higher education circles; tuition is low compared with other states with comparable systems. But so is family income. A recent report noted that middle-class families are now bringing home less than they did in 2007, before the great recession hit. Inflation may have been low, but prices rose nevertheless. Each time tuition goes up, some students are priced out of the university they wanted to attend.

State lawmakers have put university trustees and the UNC Board of Governors in the uncomfortable position of choosing between two undesirables: raise tuition or make even deeper cuts.

North Carolina’s universities must remain within reach of students who aspire to an education that enriches them as people and as citizens, not just as workers, because those individuals also enrich our state.

http://www.thetimesnews.com/opinion/our-opinion/keeping-unc-institutions-within-reach-1.413930?ot=hmg.PrintPageLayout.ot&print=nophoto

December 16, 2014 at 10:18 am
Richard Bunce says:

Not all UNC System spending is essential and it's benefit to the education of students is highly questionable. Redundancy in services/efforts among member universities and too many questionable departments/degrees is also not essential to the education of the States students.