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| General Assembly cuts UNC
budget 4 percent, hikes tuition 5 percent |
by James Nix
Editor-In-Chief
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With a new fiscal year underway, the University
of North Carolina system is facing another budget cut, as
well as a 5 percent tuition increase after the General Assembly
passed the state budget earlier this month.
The budget includes $61.7 million in UNC system operating
reductions, a cut of about 4 percent.
Appalachian State University’s budget has been cut by
3 percent, said Jane Helm, vice chancellor for business affairs.
“Of course we will continue to do all we can to protect
the integrity of the academic program, but permanent cuts
three years in a row, plus one-time reversions are taking
their toll,” she said.
The newest cut brings the tally to nearly $350 million in
cuts over the past four years, said Jonathan Ducote, president
of the UNC Association of Student Governments.
“One can quickly see the quality of education going away,”
he said.
“The cuts are hindering the improvement of salaries and
benefits for state employees,” Ducote said. “Without
proper and competitive salaries, we are poised to lose great
people from our system.”
Rachel Johnson, president of Appalachian’s Student Government
Association, said she feels the legislators are over looking
the UNC system and the importance of higher education for
the future of the state in order to fix immediate problems.
“The best resource we can have in the state is getting
people educated,” she said. “If you look in the
future, it’s much more important to have that educational
base, which people can use later to create more money in the
system.”
“The knowledge-based economy that most politicians in
North Carolina talk about cannot be attained without significant
investment in the UNC system,” Ducote said. “This
budget does not reflect what they have been saying.”
The budget’s call for the UNC Board of Governors to raise
tuition by 5 percent across all 16 UNC system schools came
after the BOG supported a moratorium on tuition increases
for this year.
The UNC ASG, along with many SGAs, backed the BOG on the moratorium.
Appalachian’s SGA passed a resolution to support the
tuition freeze in March, citing Appalachian’s tuition
doubling over the past eight years.
“Since the University of North Carolina school system
was founded under the principle of affordable education, we
are obligated to support any monetary freeze,” wrote
senators Dorothy Andrews and Howard Schreiber, co-authors
of the bill.
The most recent hike will affect in-state and out-of-state
students equally however, unlike last year’s 8 percent
in-state increase and 15 percent out-of-state increase.
Helm said the tuition increase will shift more of the cost
of going to college from the state to the students and their
families.
“The essence of the tuition increase this year is that
it is a tax on students,” Ducote said.
“It’s really becoming a true family sacrifice,”
he said. “Families are having to choose between putting
food on the table and sending a student to college and that’s
not a choice that families should have to make.”
“In my opinion they should find a way, no matter what,
to make sure that being able to go to a university in North
Carolina is accessible,” Johnson said. |
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