Lawmakers Pass Tuition Increase

The legislation will increase in-state undergraduate tuition at UNC-Chapel Hill by about $200, while out-of-state tuition will increase by about $1,000.

The tuition increase will also be retroactive, meaning students will have to pay additional money for the fall semester, which is already two weeks old.

As a result of a 4 percent tuition increase approved by the Board of Governors last fall -- which will be folded into the increase passed Wednesday -- UNC-CH students have already been charged about $100 of the tuition increase. The additional retroactive cost for in-state students will be negligible, but out-of-state students could receive a bill for an additional $400 in the coming weeks.

The tuition increase also comes on top of a $300 increase for UNC-CH students that was approved by the General Assembly last summer.

Lawmakers had until midnight Wednesday to pass a continuing budget resolution that would keep the government operating for another month while legislators try to build a budget for the fiscal year, which started July 1. Two weeks ago, lawmakers decided to include the tuition increase in the resolution so universities could implement and students could brace for the increase as soon as possible.

Passage of the tuition increase comes after several days of political wrangling between budget writers from both the Senate and the House. Last week, leaders from both chambers informally agreed to a 9 percent across-the-board tuition increase. Those plans appeared to be derailed Tuesday night when the House passed an amendment by a 65-54 vote to eliminate all in-state tuition increases and place the full burden of the tuition increase on out-of-state students.

But last-minute calls from senators to chancellors from around the UNC-system staved off the House amendment.

"At one point this morning the Senate conferees were willing to give into the House proposal," said Sen. Howard Lee, D-Orange, who chairs the Senate Appropriations Committee. "Some of us felt it was the concession we would have to make to pass the continuing resolution before the deadline."

Lee said several members of the Senate decided to call chancellors from some of the UNC system's medium-sized schools, including UNC-Charlotte and East Carolina University, who informed Senate members that the House proposal could be damaging to their universities.

"Each chancellor said this would be incredibly detrimental to their campus," Lee said. "(UNC-)Chapel Hill and N.C. State will always be able to attract out-of-state students. It's our medium-sized schools that would have had trouble recruiting out-of-state students if the House amendment went through."

Lee said those conversations convinced Lee and his colleagues that they had to make it clear to their House counterparts that the House's tuition increase proposal was not acceptable.

The Senate heard the continuing resolution Wednesday afternoon, when it was promptly voted down by a 29 to 14 vote.

Both the Senate and the House recessed at about 4 p.m., and three members from the Senate and four from the House met to iron out the differences between the two resolutions.

After about 1 1/2 hours, the House reconvened and began to debate the compromise reached by the conferees.

Several House Republicans were critical of the compromise, saying House leaders had caved to the Senate's demands. Rep. Edward Redwine, D-Brunswick, who was one of the House conferees, said the debate over conflicting tuition increase proposals took up the most time during the closed-door session.

"The tuition increase proposal was the very last thing we settled," Redwine said. "We argued very hard with the Senate on (the tuition) amendment."

But Redwine said before the full House that the conferees eventually decided that the 9 percent across-the-board tuition increase was the best possible solution. "Putting all the burden on out-of-state students would create a problem for minority students in some of our smaller campuses," he said. "It would have a chilling affect on their ability to recruit students."

But Rep. Cary Allred, R-Orange, who proposed the amendment that put all the burden on out-of-state students, continued to argue vehemently that the conference agreement was unfair to residents of the state.

"It is stupid politics to increase the tuition on the residents of your district when you can put all the increase on out-of-state students," Allred said.

Allred then read Article IX, Section IX of the N.C. Constitution -- a portion that education officials have used in the past to argue against a tuition increase. "The General Assembly shall provide that the benefits of The University of North Carolina ... as far as practicable, be extended to the people of the State free of expense," Allred said firmly. "That means this state -- North Carolina!

"You are not doing what you could do to make it as free as practical."

But Allred's argument appeared to fall mostly on deaf ears. While several Republicans spoke in support of Allred, he was berated by some Democrats and occasional laughter could be heard throughout the chamber during Allred's speech. "You are losing a lot of friends in this chamber Representative Allred, you are giving the same speech as you did in June," said Paul Luebke, D-Durham. "Enough is enough."

Allred, who proposed the same amendment earlier in the summer, countered that his point needed to be emphasized again and said House lawmakers who had previously voted for the amendment were backing out when the issue really mattered. "I feel like the point about in-state tuition needed to be made again," Allred said. "We always say we want to do good things but we never do when it gets to the bottom line."

After a nearly a half-hour debate on other portions of the continuing resolution, House lawmakers voted to approve the resolution by a 78-39 margin with most of the dissenting votes coming from the chamber's Republican members.

Just minutes after the House passed the resolution, Senate leaders, who had been milling around the back of the House chamber, reconvened their own session across the hall. The Senate met for just a few minutes and passed the resolution with no debate and no formal vote.

The resolution must receive the Gov. Mike Easley's signature before it becomes official, but Lee said he is certain the governor would sign it.

Lee added that while technically changes could be made to the tuition proposal -- especially if a budget is not passed before Sept. 28, when the new continuing resolution expires. But he said that was extremely unlikely. "We passed a bill today that is essentially like any other law and will be enforced like one."

The State & National Editor can be reached at stntdesk@unc.edu.