Last week, the University of North Carolina system announced that tuition will rise again for the 2010-2011 school year. In Chapel Hill, a 5.2-percent increase will put a year of in-state tuition at $4,065.98 before fees, books and other costs.
At N.C. Central University in Durham, a requested 5-percent hike will mean two semesters of tuition (not including fees) will cost $2,377.20.
Across the system, it's expected to raise $34.4 million in revenue.
We're not opposed to the increases.
North Carolina's colleges and universities are affordable by most measures, and they're a steal when compared with similar schools across the country.
Even private schools like Duke University have an eye on costs; last week, Bloomburg News Service reported that the net price of college is more than $14,000 below the sticker price at most private, nonprofit colleges. The College Board's annual "Trends in College Pricing" report said the net cost of college is up just 7 percent, although the published prices have risen by more than a quarter since 2004.
"The price, on the surface, is more than a middle-income family can pay," Alison Rabil, assistant vice provost and director of financial aid at Duke University, told the reporter. "But we're not asking families to pay that amount."
That's great. What else have you got?
For starters, North Carolina's public schools need to go to the General Assembly early and often this year to request that legislators stick with the tuition increases as they were proposed by the schools and passed by the UNC Board of Governors.
Outgoing UNC system President Erskine Bowles fought off a proposal to jack tuition up another 2 percentage points (to an average of 7.2 percent) and dump the revenue into the state's general fund.
Instead, Bowles proposed, $17.2 million -- half of the increase -- should go to need-based aid, guaranteeing that all qualified North Carolinians still have access to the university system.
It's a good plan. College graduates earn higher wages and kick in more to the state revenue pool over their lifetimes; it's shortsighted to strip the system of revenue designed to increase the number of North Carolina kids who can go to college and get degrees.
As a second step, all of the state's universities, public and private, should look farther north, where the U.S. Senate is stalling a bill that would cut third-party lenders out of the business of government-secured education loans.
The Congressional Budget Office estimates that direct government lending will save $80 billion over 10 years, money that could go to education initiatives and poor-but-promising students.
It could make a real difference, but it's vulnerable to a Republican filibuster. Universities should help with the lobbying effort.
Finally, the universities should take any small steps they can to alleviate extra financial burdens.
Professors should be encouraged to streamline their required textbooks and strongly consider the cost to students when they switch texts between semesters.
Universities should bring their weight to bear in negotiating liveable conditions and affordable rents for on- and off-campus housing.
And, although it's not required until August 2011, every college should get ahead of federal requirements to post a "net price calculator" on its Web site to help families determine the real cost of college.
