TABLE OF CONTENTS |
FRONT PAGE
| NEXT ARTICLE |
PREVIOUS ARTICLE |
UNC HOMEPAGE
The University Board of Trustees voted to increase student fees for the
upcoming academic year, but not before lodging a loud complaint that the fees
should have been raised higher to keep pace with the actual cost of providing
services.
The fee increases must be approved through the UNC Board of Governors and the
state legislature before they can go into effect in the fall.
Under the schedule trustees approved, the general fees charged to Carolina
undergraduates would go up 2.8 percent, or from $752.32 to $773.42. General
fees for graduate students would increase 2.6 percent, or from $742.92 to
$761.92.
Trustee David E. Pardue Jr. said every year he and other trustees have
complained that the fee increases are too low only to be told that their
concerns will be addressed in the next year's fee increases.
General fees for undergraduates amounted to $700.82 during the 1997-98 academic
year, exactly $51.50 less than they are this school year. During this period,
fee increases each year averaged out to be little more than 2 percent.
Pardue said these kind of increases were not enough to keep up with inflation
almost anywhere in the state and particularly not here in Chapel Hill.
At one point, trustees appeared ready to delay action to allow time for a
revised schedule with higher fees to be developed.
The idea was dropped when Nancy Suttenfield, the vice chancellor for finance
and administration, explained that General Administration had already granted
an extension to the Jan. 19 deadline that had been set to submit recommended
fee increases.
Chancellor James Moeser and Suttenfield were quick to agree with the trustees
and assured them that the fee increases they recommended next year will be
consistent with what trustees have indicated they want.
The student fee schedule will become part of the first University budget that
Moeser and Suttenfield will develop and submit to the trustees. Moeser took
over as chancellor last summer. Suttenfield arrived at the end of last year.
The validity of the trustees' objections appeared to be further bolstered with
a comparative chart they reviewed that showed how Carolina's fee schedule
ranked as the 15th lowest out of the 16-campus UNC system.
The chart detailed how Carolina stood in the four separate categories of fees
that make up general fees: the education and technology fees; the athletic fee;
the health service fee; and the student activity fee, the only one of the four
that differs slightly between graduate students and undergraduates.
UNC-Wilmington charges the highest general fees at $1,017, followed by the $929
charged by UNC-Greensboro and the $951 charged by UNC-Asheville.
Carolina's current general fees of $752 compared similarly to fees charged at
three of the UNC system's historically black universities: Elizabeth State
University, Winston-Salem State University and Fayetteville State University.
General fees at Elizabeth State are $792, and they are $743 at Winston-Salem.
Fayetteville State charges the lowest general fees in the UNC system at $638.
Trustee Bill Jordan singled out Carolina's athletic fee of $85 as an area of
concern that should be addressed. N.C. State University charges a dollar less
with an athletic fee of $84, but Jordan suggested the fee was out of whack with
the athletic fees charged by other state campuses where the low ranged from
$225 at Winston-Salem State to a high of $399 at UNC-Asheville.
In addition to general fees, the chart compared the "debt service fees" that
students pay. Here, too, Carolina students pay among the lowest.
When general fees and debt service fees are combined, Carolina charges students
a total of $850.32, higher only to the $638 charged at Fayetteville State.
"Why are we 15th out of 16th?" Jordan asked. "It's crazy. The athletic fees are
really insane."
TABLE OF CONTENTS |
FRONT PAGE
| NEXT ARTICLE |
PREVIOUS ARTICLE |
UNC HOMEPAGE