Bowles Proposes Cap on Tuition Increases

Posted on Oct. 3, 2006

Tuition and fee increases at Carolina and other UNC System schools over the next four years would be limited to 6.5 percent annually for in-state undergraduates in a new proposal by UNC System President Erskine Bowles ’67 to the Board of Governors’ tuition task force.

If Carolina were to seek a 6.5 percent increase in each of the next four years, that would represent a small slowing of increases when compared with the past four years. The following tracks increases in tuition and fees for Carolina undergraduates:

• 2002-03 – 6 percent (in-state); 5 percent (out-of-state)
• 2003-04 – 9 percent; 10 percent
• 2004-05 – 4 percent; 5 percent
• 2005-06 – 9 percent; 7 percent

The average for in-state and out-of-state students over those four years is about 7 percent.

In the two years before 2002-03, these costs rose more sharply. In-state tuition and fees jumped 21 percent in 2000-01 and 18 percent in 2001-02; out-of-state tuition and fees went up 12 percent and 14 percent in each of those periods.

If approved, the proposal could satisfy some students, parents and other critics who have said that even if increases are justified, the unpredictability from year to year puts them in a bind.

A University spokesman said that Chancellor James Moeser favors Bowles’ proposal.

In-state students currently pay $5,033 annually, and nonresidents pay $19,681. One popular measure of value, Kiplinger’s Personal Finance magazine, recently listed Carolina at the top of its ranking for public universities for the sixth consecutive year. UNC topped the ranking for both in-state and out-of-state charges this year.

The cap as proposed would apply only to in-state undergraduates. The task force is scheduled to discuss the proposal on Oct. 10, and if approved it would go to the full Board of Governors on Oct. 13.

The 6.5 percent figure represents the UNC System’s average annual increase in undergraduate resident rates since 1972. The Board of Governors task force is guided in part by its expectation that charges for in-state students remain within the bottom quarter of those of peer institutions used by the Board of Governors for comparison.

The proposal includes a provision that at least 25 percent of proceeds from an increase would be set aside for need-based financial aid so that students who qualify for aid wouldn’t be unfairly pinched. The standard on the Chapel Hill campus is 35 percent. The proposal also says at least 25 percent would be used for faculty pay increases.

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Related coverage is available online:

• BOG Backs Trustees, Increasing Tuition and Fees Next Year
  News report from January 2006
• Tuition Request Undecided, but BOG Open to Hikes
  News report from December 2005
• Trustees Agree to Add $1,500 to Out-of-State Tuition News report from January 2004

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