COMMENTARY

Grades are in from BOG tuition vote fallout
Does ASG’s charges warrant next year’s $165,000 budget?

John T. Bennett

The University of North Carolina system Board of Governors’ annual spring tuition and fees meeting is now more than two weeks past.

The weeks leading up to the body’s vote produced quite a stir, but with the rhetorical dust finally settled, several things have become crystal clear:

THUMBS UP: BOG KILLS ASU PLAN
The BOG acted soundly by stopping the Appalachian tuition increase plan dead in its tracks. Instead of rubberstamping the proposal served up by Chancellor Francis T. Borkowski and his administrative team, the board allowed the school B.B. Dougherty built to boost tuition by an additional $50 next year.

The University of North Carolina’s governing body answered the call of this publication’s editorial board by displaying wise judgment by earmarking monies generated by that $50 hike to instructional functions—not staff salaries, a charge historically funded by the North Carolina General Assembly.

The BOG gets a thumbs up only because it refused to allow the Appalachian administration to implement a plan that would have sent tuition in Boone down a very slippery slope. The fact the board has approved a pair of campus-based tuition hike requests totaling $200 over the past two years is a disturbing trend.

The BOG must stop that pattern soon.

THUMBS DOWN: ASU ADMINISTRATION.

To say university administrators made waves with the $150 tuition hike proposal would be a severe understatement.

The effort to increase the salaries of a portion of the university’s lowest-paid employees was indeed a noble effort.

Chancellor Francis T. Borkowski and his administrative cohorts no doubt genuinely care about the hard working men and women who comprise the staff at Appalachian but the question still stands: Why did university officials wait until now to take steps to bring them
above the poverty line?

The answer to that question will no doubt be answered in the months to come, but other aspects of the now-killed plan are more troubling.

For instance, the administration’s growing reliance on student dollars to offset the state’s on-going financial woes is a disturbing trend.

Also, a month-long probe by The Appalachian revealed an allocation plan for the generated monies was not finalized just two days before the BOG vote. University officials were very tight-lipped about how many staff members would be eligible or how the funds would be appropriated.

Such disorganization and secretive policy making cannot be allowed at a publicly-funded institution of higher learning.

THUMBS DOWN: ASG BUDGET SWELL.

Just when this humble correspondent thought he had seen it all in his two-plus years covering student charges at Appalachian and across the Tar Heel State, the BOG approved a system-wide $1 fee hike that will see the North Carolina Association of Student Governments’ yearly budget increase by $162, 500 next year.

The board approved a plan that will see this student organization oversee a cash coffer of $165,000 next year, up from the body’s current $2,500 budget.

The possibilities for widespread mismanagement of these student dollars seem endless.

Do ASG charges warrant such a steep budget?

Furthermore, why would the BOG approve a plan that hands more money to an arm of a state bureaucracy that over the past half-decade has shown absolutely no ability to manage money in an effective manner?

Looking on from my perch, this appears to be more Enron-like policymaking.

Putting specific dollar amounts aside, a tone of financial hypocrisy is at play here.

ASG opposes campus-based tuition hikes spawned by administrators at individual campuses but sees nothing wrong with a fee hike—though miniscule—to inflate its own budget.

---