Summer schools lose funds

N.C. lawmakers took a step toward realizing Alice Cooper’s vision of a school-free summer.

Or, at least, a subsidy-free summer.

A provision in the state budget eliminated subsidies for certain system activities that are funded by a combination of university and state revenue — namely summer school.

That leaves some UNC-system summer-school programs searching for funding. And school officials say the costs most likely will be passed along to students.

Because system schools received different levels of funding for the program, some campuses will feel the loss more sharply than others.

“Funds by the state have been insufficient for a long time,” said Jeff Davies, vice president for finance for the UNC system.

He said legislators should be supporting summer school rather than cutting funding.

“This kind of reduction took the university system in the wrong direction.”

Officials at UNC-Chapel Hill, UNC-Wilmington and Winston-Salem State University said they likely won’t have to significantly burden students, because they received a relatively small subsidy anyway.

But UNC-Greensboro and Appalachian State University will see a definite drop in their summer-school budgets, and need more student receipts to offset the loss.

Robert Brown, dean of the division of continual learning at UNC-G, said the summer school program will lose about 18 percent of its funding.

“It will require that we either increase tuition for students, increase class size, limit section numbers offered or cut back on academic support systems,” he said.

Gail Hauser, ASU’s associate summer school director, said administrators are not exactly sure how the university will be affected.

The school will lose roughly $420,000 in subsidies, which is about 10 percent of the overall budget, she said.

She added that an increase of as much as 10 percent in summer tuition is likely.

UNC-CH will be not be as severely affected, because state appropriations only comprise about 2 to 3 percent of funding. The University will lose about $180,000 in appropriations for summer school in 2006, said Jim Murphy, dean of the summer school.

He said that the program has not relied on the subsidy for the past 10 years, but that having lesser funds will make planning and budgeting more difficult.

“We’ve essentially lost our buffer,” Murphy said.

Although tuition at UNC-CH will not see major increases, they’ll only offer classes if demand is high, he said. “We’ll offer classes if students will pay to take them.”

Patricia Deanes, resource manager for UNC-W’s summer school, said the university voluntarily cut back its program in 2003, so the state cuts will have no major impact. The school received less than $20,000 in funds this summer from the state.

Deanes said that class offerings will not be cut, but that the subsidy loss could lead to a slight increase in fees for out-of-state students.

Contact the State & National Editor at stntdesk@unc.edu.