Education

Trustees OK tuition increases at UNC, N.C. State

The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill Board of Trustees on Thursday approved a 6.5 percent tuition increase for the 2011-12 school year.

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CHAPEL HILL, N.C. — The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill Board of Trustees on Thursday approved a 6.5 percent tuition increase for the 2011-12 school year.

The increase, which is the maximum allowed under university policy, still must be approved by the UNC Board of Governors and state lawmakers.

"It’s not our first choice of how to fund the university, but (it's) a better choice than giving up on what we spent 217 years building,” Chancellor Holden Thorp said Wednesday. "In order to maintain the quality of what we are doing, we need resources to handle the (anticipated state) cuts and maintain the work we are doing.”

The Board of Trustees at North Carolina State followed suit Friday, approving a $300-per-year tuition increase for in-state undergraduates and $600 for out-of-state undergraduates and all graduate students.

Under the UNC proposal, in-state undergraduates would have to pay an extra $313 per year, while out-of-state undergraduates would pay $1,523 more. In-state graduate students would see their tuition go up by $414 a year and out-of-state graduate students by $1,371.

The additional tuition would generate about $15 million for UNC, which is about one-sixth of the cut in state funding the campus expects next year, officials said.

Forty-five percent of the additional revenue would be earmarked to provide financial aid to students, which Thorp said is critically needed.

"Not to be in a position to meet the all need would be very hard for us to handle," he said. "We've always been able to meet all that need, and the way we've set up this tuition increases is critically important to be able to do that."

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