A vital increase in UNC's tuition

The News & Observer
February 5, 2012
By Wade H. Hargrove

RALEIGH -- All of us who attended a constituent campus of the University of North Carolina arrived on the backs of our families, taxpayers and private donors who believed in the public good of higher education and that a vibrant public university is in the self-interest of the state. We should not - indeed, we cannot - allow our state's system of public universities to drift into mediocrity for lack of adequate funding.

As the General Assembly struggles in a challenging economy with how best to allocate scarce public resources, support by North Carolina taxpayers of UNC-Chapel Hill has diminished significantly - by almost a quarter of a billion dollars, in the aggregate, since 2008, including $101 million (18 percent) in the current fiscal year. Gifts from private donors, even in a difficult economy, have held steady, but are hardly enough to offset the substantial reduction in state funding.

Some ask, appropriately, has the university really made a serious effort to reduce operating costs as virtually every other nonprofit and for-profit entity has been forced to do?

More than three years ago, UNC-Chapel Hill commissioned a comprehensive efficiency study called "Carolina Counts" by Bain & Co., a nationally known business consulting firm. (Other major universities are now undertaking the same initiative.) As a result, UNC-Chapel Hill has eliminated approximately $50 million in annual operating expenses.  More campus cost reductions must and will occur; there are no sacred cows. But, unfortunately, as UNC system President Tom Ross recently observed, "The really easy decisions have been made."

The funding gap is now taking its toll. Cuts have been made to the library; class sizes have increased; some classes have been eliminated altogether; and students are experiencing difficulty getting into classes that instantly fill up and close out, leading to potential delays in graduation.  Click here to read more.