UNC-system tuition model could change

In the next three months, the UNC-system Board of Governors will be reviewing the Four Year Tuition Plan, which was created in 2006 by system President Erskine Bowles to provide more stability to the tuition process.

The board is considering several recommendations.

In its series, Daily Tar Heel takes a closer look at each of the seven policy recommendations.

The board meets Thursday.

Tuition rates at UNC-system schools could be tied to other campuses with similar missions or schools could be given the flexibility to determine their own models based on an upcoming decision by the system’s Board of Governors.

The current process, which was put in place by the Four Year Tuition Plan in 2006, allows campuses to make individual proposals for tuition increases each year, depending on their needs.

Schools are limited by a 6.5 percent cap for undergraduate residents and a requirement to stay within the bottom quartile of each university’s peer institutions’ rates.

But a task force formed to update the process made two recommendations — tying schools with similar missions to the same tuition model or giving schools the flexibility to decide their own tuition parameters in place of the system-wide requirements.

Alan Boyette, vice provost at UNC-Greensboro, said tuition is based on too many factors — like extent of non-tuition funding and a school’s prestige — to have tuition models apply to multiple universities.

“Circumstances on each campus, regardless of the institutional classification, can legitimately lead to well-justified differences in tuition rates,” Boyette said.

Frank Daniels Jr., a member of the board, also said having a tuition model that fits similar institutions is not the best way forward.

“Each institution is so different,” he said. “I don’t think one size fits everybody.”

But Robert Pompey Jr., vice chancellor for business and finance at N.C. Agricultural & Technical State University, said this plan would increase the school’s revenue.

If the policy is adopted, N.C. A&T and UNC-G will be partner institutions with the same tuition model.

The partnership would be based on their Greensboro location and science-centric teaching missions.

“When you consider that the universities are the same type of classification and are expected to deliver the same types of things, they should have a similar tuition model so they can deliver consistent results,” he said.

Pompey said he wants to see this recommendation implemented if N.C. A&T’s yearly tuition rate is brought up to match UNC-G’s — which is currently $557 higher.

Joni Worthington, spokeswoman for the UNC system, said tuition rates should be more closely grouped together for institutions with similar missions.

“It would involve adjustments to the tuition rate,” Worthington said. “In general, those campuses whose tuition rates are significantly below those of similar institutions would be provided an opportunity to make some adjustments to their tuition rates over a period of time.”

At UNC-CH, administrators were the closest to the 6.5 percent cap in their original proposal and have hinted that upcoming budget cuts could lead to an even higher tuition increase.

Those increases could be possible only if the board accepts the recommendation to allow universities to set their own tuition parameters.

But Dwayne Pinkney, assistant provost for financial and academic planning at UNC-CH, said allowing campuses to decide different tuition models would hurt the process because it would not be uniform.

“Chapel Hill is a team player within the system and within the state,” he said. “UNC-Chapel Hill would not go out and pursue some tuition policy that is very foreign to the UNC system or that the University feels completely breaks with the past.”

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