Opinion: Do not let tuition hikes slide by unnoticed

Students and faculty have been rallying, rightfully so, against the UNC Board of Governors’ recommendation to close centers that don’t fit its conservative vision for UNC.

Shortly before the BOG made their unanimous final vote on the centers at a meeting at UNC-Charlotte, they deliberated on raising tuition, prompting a vocal objection from the students and faculty present. They went ahead with the raise, increasing tuition at an average of 4.3 percent for all in-state undergraduate students across all UNC-system campuses.

Yet popular attention to the tuition hikes has been scant, while the center cuts are now a national story. And even though the issue directly affects them more than almost any other, students’ activism around tuition hikes this year pales in comparison to the 200-person protest in response to the round of tuition hikes in 2012.

Perhaps the unrelenting national tuition trends at public universities have fatigued some activists.

Indeed, UNC is not unique in its steady tuition increases. Even in arguably more progressive states like California, tuition has skyrocketed in recent years. Federal Pell Grants have failed to keep up with the increases by providing matching amounts of financial aid, leaving the majority of the responsibility for financial aid provision to individual universities.

This situation has created a particular burden for UNC, which will no longer be able to dedicate as much tuition revenue to financial aid after the “freeze and cap” proposal passed last year by the BOG. Since the 2007-08 school year, tuition has risen an average of 55 percent among system campuses.

The tuition increases this year come in a notably different political and economic environment than previous increases. In 2011, tuition increases corresponded with the North Carolina General Assembly’s cuts of nearly half a billion dollars from the system budget during the height of the recession.

Now the tuition increases are aimed at raising faculty salaries, with the Provost and Chancellor approving these costs in collaboration with members of the Tuition and Fee Advisory Task Force. These recommendations then moved to the BOG for approval, leading us to the current reality.

While efforts to raise faculty salaries are needed, college students today should not bear the brunt of the financial responsibility in these efforts to raise revenue. To do so directly harms the public nature of our university system, which was founded partially on the promise of accessibility to state residents.

The state constitution makes this explicit in its requirement that officials ensure education is free “as far as practicable.”

The credibility and principle of that promise is weakened every year administrators choose to pass new increases. We call on our administrators, who are so far removed from the pain of these costs, to reject the tendency to pass more costs to students.

For students, we must recognize that the current issues we face with respect to affordability and the cuts to centers and institutes are connected. Both degrade the University’s values of accessibility and public service.

The academic freedoms and practical services provided by the centers are fundamental to the role of a state university.

Making higher education accessible to students of all economic backgrounds, especially in a state like North Carolina where those backgrounds vary so widely, does the same.

While the attack on UNC centers demonstrated unprecedented callousness, both that decision and the tuition increases are actions on the part of the BOG that fundamentally alter the university system and make it a still more exclusive environment.

Concerned community members should work harder to connect these issues and directly protest to both the BOG and the General Assembly, acknowledging that consistent attention needs to be brought to the rising price of a college education.