Did you know that our economy is in shambles? Did you know that North Carolina faces a $3 billion budget shortfall? Did you know that many North Carolinians were greeted to the holiday season with lost jobs and homes? I’m sure you did. So, are you like me? Do you think it is rather insane to talk about increasing tuition during a looming economic depression? I think it is insane, but apparently I’m alone. Universities across the state, including N.C. State, UNC-Chapel Hill and N.C. Central, are doing just that — they are jacking up their tuition rates.Benjamin Franklin once said, “The definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over and expecting different results.” According to that definition, the struggle to keep North Carolina’s public university system affordable and accessible is insane. The same result occurs — tuition rises, debt loads increase and more qualified students are shut out of our state’s higher education system.Is anyone listening? Does anyone care? Does no one else see that the connection between the worsening economy and the health of our nation’s student body? Because the facts (according to the Project on Student Debt) are astonishing:In the past five years, tuition and fees at public universities have risen by 57 percent. Over the past decade, debt levels for graduating seniors with student loans more than doubled from $9,250 to $19,200 — a 108 percent increase. At public universities, debt levels for graduating seniors with student loans more than doubled from $8,014 to $17,250 over the past decade — a 116 percent increase.By the time they graduate, nearly two-thirds of students at four-year colleges and universities have student loan debt (66.4 percent in 2004). In 1993, less than one-half of four-year graduates had student loans.Cost factors prevent 48 percent of college-qualified high school graduates from attending a 4-year institution and 22 percent from attending any college at all. In a single year this amounts to 400,000 college-qualified students who will be unable to attend a 4-year college and nearly 170,000 will not attend college at all.More than 20 percent of low-income, college-qualified high school graduates do not enroll in college.Yet despite these disturbing trends, universities continue to raise tuition. The absurdity doesn’t stop there. On a national level, college administrators’ pay rose four percent for this academic year, outpacing inflation for the tenth consecutive year, according to the College and University Professional Association for Human Resources.The insanity is not limited to university administrators or trustees. The sickness is even more prevalent in the halls of state government. Each year the state invests more than $8,000 per student enrolled in a UNC system institution. Compare that to the $25,000 to $32,000 a year it takes to imprison an inmate. In the earlier part of the decade, state appropriations for higher education remained unchanged at $2.4 billion; though the state appropriated money for three new prisons. During the same period state need based financial aid increased 4 percent from $146 million to $152 million, but not because of a policy decision by elected officials. Need-based financial aid only increased because of proceeds from tuition increases.The facts are the facts and the insanity continues to grow. Maybe Santa Clause will deliver us a holiday miracle.
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