The board's existing tuition policy -- which was put in place in 1998 -- has been criticized by student leaders for being ineffectual and not followed by members of the BOG when making decisions on tuition increases.
The BOG's Special Committee on Tuition and Fee Policies, which consists wholly of BOG members, met for the first time June 20 -- mainly to review the board's existing policy on tuition.
"The long-term goal is to make sure the existing tuition policy accurately reflects the board's tuition philosophy," said BOG Vice Chairman and Committee Chairman John Cecil.
Cecil said he does not yet know how many changes the committee will decide to make to the policy or how long the process will take.
He said, "It could be as simple as tweaking what we had ... or looking at some other options."
The policy the board passed in 1998 calls for the BOG to consider two kinds of tuition increases: systemwide increases to deal with inflationary increases in costs and campus-initiated tuition increases to deal with campus-specific needs.
The policy called for campus-specific increases to be approved only if an "exceptional situation" arose. But during the first two years the policy was in effect, the board approved a campus-initiated tuition increase at 11 of the 16 UNC-system schools.
During the summer of 2001, the N.C. General Assembly, after negotiations with UNC-system administrators, removed the clause from the tuition policy. Last year, most of the 16 UNC-system campuses requested and got an additional round of campus-initiated tuition increases.
