Board approves tuition hike despite student protest

By Lawren Shepard
Campus Life Editor

The UNC Board of Governors approved on March 19 a $225 tuition increase for UNCP students, despite an organized student protest held in opposition to the proposal. The tuition boost for UNCP was the smallest of the increases approved by the Board of Governors, according to Chancellor Allen Meadors.

“We have not been able to give our faculty a raise in three years,” Meadors said. “We can’t provide a quality education to our students without money.”

The UNCP Board of Trustees voted in December 2003 to recommend a $300 tuition increase for the 2004-05 school year; the Board of Governors decreased the amount and approved the recommended $35 student fee increase.

The tuition increase will provide more than $1 million to the university. Only the university will utilize the money generated by the campus-based tuition raise. Prior increases were mandated by the North Carolina General Assembly that sent the money to the state. The money will be used strictly for instructional purposes, according to Meadors.

The board also approved other increases. Meal plans for the 2004-05 school year will cost $975 per semester; the 2003-04 plans cost $927 per semester.

Students in Pine Hall will pay between $57-$78 more per semester depending on their suite arrangements. Students living in North, Belk, West and Wellons dormitories will pay $50 more per semester. The cost of living in the Village Apartments did not increase. Student insurance also increased from $158 per semester to an estimated $175.

About 200 students from many of the 16 universities in the UNC system participated in a protest at the meeting in Chapel Hill. The UNCP SGA held a recruitment session in front of the U.C. on March 17 and paid for two buses to transport students to the protest on March 19. Seventy-eight UNCP students signed up to participate, but only SGA Vice President Alfonza Thomas attended the protest. Chartering the buses cost SGA $300.

According to Meadors, UNCP has lost $6 million in funding over the past three years.

“You can’t just keep cutting,” Meadors said. “We had about the sixth lowest tuition in the nation. Tuition and fees will still be less than $3,000.”

Meadors said that the Board of Governors members were discussing the possibility of asking the state legislature for money to assist students whose need-based scholarships do not cover the amount of the increase.

At the meeting in December 2003, the UNCP Board of Trustees proposed a further $300 tuition increase for the 2005-06 school year.

“If the legislature doesn’t provide any money, how can there not be [future increases]?” Meadors said.

East Carolina University, UNC-Chapel Hill, Appalachian State University and N.C. State University are among the 15 other schools in the UNC system that are facing tuition increases for the 2005-06 year.