UNC School of Dentistry fees could rise $1,240

Dentistry students are likely to either find their curriculum altered for the worse or be charged $1,240 more in student fees, depending on the outcome of fee increase requests introduced Friday.

In the student fee advisory subcommittee meeting, officials from the School of Dentistry presented fee increase requests, the size of which surprised many members of the group.

The school requested an increase in the instrument management fee for dental students from $1,500 to $2,500 and an increase in the instrument management fee for dental hygiene from $760 to $1,000, Ken May, vice dean of the school of dentistry, said If approved, the increases would be implemented in the 2012-13 academic year.

The school has been unable to request these fee increases for 20 years due to a moratorium set by the Board of Governors that denies all University special fee increases, said May.

Special fees are those that are applicable to students engaged in only particular activities or courses of study. It mainly applies to professional schools.

May said the school needs the fee increases to provide the same caliber of academic programming.

And this might not be the last special fee increase request the subcommittee sees.

Dwayne Pinkney, associate provost for finance and academic planning, said the subcommittee will likely see more special fee increase requests from across the University, despite the standing moratorium.

“I think our stance on special fees has been OK, but we all know times are different,” he said.

Alex Mills, treasurer of the Graduate and Professional Student Federation, said he has received emails already from dentistry students opposed to the steep hike.

“The students’ concern was they felt the increase was inappropriate,” Mills said. “It’s a big jump in the burden of cost, just because it will happen so suddenly.”

Zach Dexter, co-chairman of the subcommittee and student body treasurer, said the subcommittee might recommend the school return to the Board of Trustees and ask for an additional tuition increase of the requested amount.

“Making it a tuition increase would at least send a message: if you cut our budget we have to increase tuition,” he said.

The dentistry fees in question were created to cover the cost of sterilizing and purchasing the school’s instruments used mostly in the fourth year of dental school on patients, along with some salaries, May said.

But the rising cost of instruments and sterilization necessitates a hike in the fee, said Robert Foy, associate dean for financial affairs at the school.

“We know this sounds like a lot,” he said. “But salaries of people in this department have been moved off (the budget) and the state’s money is gone, so the fee isn’t paying for what its intent originally was.”

While dentistry administrators have so far observed the moratorium, the school can’t wait any longer, May said.

“It would have been much easier if we could have added $50 to $100 to the fee every year, but now we’re reaching a critical point,” he said.

Without the increase, the school will have to cut back on the number of patients the students treat and reach into the school’s trust fund for instrument repair and salary payment, May said.

Mary Cooper, student body president, said a solution must be reached to ensure the quality of the dental school curriculum.
“Health affairs has been hit incredibly hard by budget cuts in the past year,” she said.

“I don’t want this to hurt the academic core of the school.”
The fee increase will be discussed and decided upon in future subcommittee meetings.

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