TO THE EDITOR:
The tuition and fee advisory task force just approved a 6.8 percent increase to nonresident graduate tuition in order to reduce the nonresident undergraduate tuition increase to 6.1 percent.
The undergraduate out-of-state student population is limited to 18 percent of the whole undergraduate population. However, roughly 90 percent of incoming graduate students are nonresidents.
Pressure from individual programs makes obtaining residency a priority for U.S. resident graduate students. Graduate students who are unable to obtain residency cost significantly more for their departments, especially as differences between in-state and out-of-state tuition continue to increase.
Departments with graduate students account for most of the $767 million brought in by research funding to UNC in fiscal year 2012. Many aspects of the University dramatically depend on the overhead generated by these grants.
With increases in tuition and the need to increase stipends to allow graduate students to make ends meet and remain above the federal poverty line, departments have already begun to admit fewer students.
Due to stagnated state funding, departments also struggle to provide tuition remission for international graduate students and those unable to obtain residency.
Departments have tough decisions ahead of them due to the widening gap between in-state and out-of-state graduate tuition. They must decide if diversity in their department and research project productivity are worth the increasing costs of having nonresident students.
JoEllen McBride
Graduate student
Physics
