noffen@heraldsun.com; 419-6646
DURHAM -- N.C. Central University officials approved a 5 percent tuition increase for the next academic year Thursday, while acknowledging that the action would probably have no effect.
The hike approved by the Board of Trustees executive committee would raise tuition by $113.20, to $2,337 per year for in-state students. The committee also approved a series of mandatory fee increases for students that would boost the total by 4.75 percent, to $1,547.36 next year.
Overall, the approved increases would mean that in-state NCCU students would pay $3,924.36 excluding room and board next year, an increase of $183.40.
According to the proposals, 50 percent of the revenue generated by the increased tuition -- around half a million dollars -- would go to student financial aid.
The new rates will be forwarded to the UNC system's Board of Governors, for its approval. But they may be dead on arrival.
The state legislature, in its last budget, already decreed that in-state tuition next year at system schools will go up by 8 percent, or $200, whichever is less. And whatever revenue is generated by the increases, according to the legislature, would accrue to the state -- and not the campuses.
"If nothing is done about changing the bill passed by the legislature, that's the way it's going to be," NCCU Chancellor Charlie Nelms resignedly told the trustee members during a teleconference. "As it stands now, these proposals will be accepted by the Board of Governors, yes, but not by the legislature."
Trustee Eric Michaux -- who ended up as the sole vote against the tuition increases -- was angry with the legislature and repeatedly called the discussion and votes "a charade."
"We are just taxing those who are least able to handle it," Michaux said. "We are taxing some people instead of all of the people. This is not right and we should not vote for this."
Alan Robertson, the vice chancellor for administration and finance, responded that the trustees had to vote on the increases "to get our fees in line" -- no matter what happened with the tuition hikes.
But "we can't guarantee to students and anybody else that we are going to get the money [from the tuition increase]," Michaux said. "In fact, we can guarantee we ain't going to get it."
"This is just a way of taxing the students," Michaux went on. "It's a violation of the state motto -- 'to be, rather than to seem.'"
Nelms, though, still held out hope that the legislature might change its mind, and allow the individual campuses to set their own rates and retain some of the revenue generated by tuition increases.
While acknowledging that the legislative-mandated increases would "have a disparate impact" on NCCU, where 95 percent of the students receive some kind of financial aid, the chancellor said, "it is my hope we will be able to work out some kind of agreement with the state legislature. I want to believe there would be some meeting of the minds on this."
