All 16 UNC-system schools recently submitted student fee increase proposals, in addition to campus-initiated tuition increase requests, to the UNC-system Board of Governors.
If the proposal is approved by the BOG, student fees at UNC-Chapel Hill will increase by about $62.10, an increase of about 8 percent. Students already pay about $773 in fees per year.
Tuition fees pay for instructional costs, but student fees pay for supplemental services provided by the University. At most UNC-system schools, athletics, health care and expansion programs are funded either in part or completely by student fees. Individual campuses review student fees on a yearly basis to assess the need for extra revenue to cover the rising costs of academic and institutional programs -- and officials tend to raise those fees every year.
Andrew Payne, president of the UNC-system Association of Student Governments and a nonvoting member of the BOG, said the board has been monitoring student fee requests during the past few years to make sure they do not grow out of control. "When the BOG examines the requests, they'll look at the whole package -- both tuition and fee requests."
But he added that the BOG will likely pass all student fee increase requests.
Payne said that in poor economies, universities sometimes use student fees to raise finances that the N.C. General Assembly cannot provide.
Jeff Davies, UNC-system vice president for finance, said student fees are important because they cover program costs that the state does not. "If you have a health program at your university and salaries go up, student fees are what support the raises," Davies said.
Under BOG policies, campuses are supposed to be restricted to 5 percent student fee increases. But Davies said campuses sometimes ask for increases exceeding 5 percent to keep up in certain areas.
Health care and education technology programs are the two areas that most consistently prompt increases, said Tom Stafford, N.C. State University vice chancellor for student affairs. "The need to keep up with changing technology is very, very strong," Stafford said. "With changes in technology, costs increase."
