Rather than examining the reasons why UNC needs more money and how it can profit the most students, student government weakly fought a tired fight against tuition increases in general. Although the trustees knew the tuition increase would not have nearly any impact compared to the $1.5 billion Carolina First Campaign to build the endowment, the trustees took advantage of our weakness.
Student lobbyists focused too narrowly on the credible threat of UNC being too expensive for lower-income students. Yet with 40 percent of the $9 million raised through the increase headed to financial aid, the N.C. Constitution argument was pushed aside by the trustees.
Student Body President Justin Young should have admitted there's no question that UNC needs more money to retain outstanding faculty and to maintain our tradition of academic excellence. To fight the $400 tuition increase, student government should have focused less on complaining about paying more and zeroed in on how our money will be used to improve our educations.
Young should have talked with the BOT more about where UNC's expansion is headed and how the legislature, students and alumni must work together to ensure quality education within this future. All parties must understand what funds are needed and how they will be allocated so that the burden will not be dumped on students due to lack of discussion.
Young also should have continually reminded the BOT that this increase will only provide a fraction of the amount needed for faculty salary parity with our competitors. For the sake of doing something relatively small about our needed improvements, UNC has shafted students rather than having a more meaningful discussion in which alumni and General Assembly resources were included.
To ensure a uniform vision, all of us need to consider how UNC can be improved without radically changing UNC's signature style. At the BOT meeting, Trustee Rusty Carter spoke about how UNC must focus on retaining its unique character.
We need to have more confidence in our University, and we must put our heads together to discover how we can raise a substantial amount of money and then apply the funds to making a better, yet still special, Carolina.
It's not the time for students, alumni or legislators to deny financial responsibility. But because all three groups have not discussed the most important issues concerning Carolina's future, students are stuck with another meaningless bill.
Students can no longer resist tuition increases simply because we don't want to pay more. What we should be fighting for is paying more for a better Carolina, not a Carolina that implements tuition increases as Band-Aids to cover huge problems. And a stronger Carolina starts with more student-oriented administrators. Instead of analyzing statistics all day, I want to see Chancellor James Moeser sitting in your classes. I want Moeser and Provost Robert Shelton studying the brilliance of a UNC education and spending their quality hours identifying ways to remedy our academic weaknesses. I want our administrators and trustees behaving like educators rather than businessmen taking advantage of the little guy.
