UNC System to vote on tuition increases for in‑state and out‑of‑state students

RALEIGH, N.C. (WTVD) -- The UNC System Board of Governors is set to vote on requested undergraduate tuition increases Thursday morning.

"Over the past nine years, the guidance from the Board of Governors and in this office has been to keep tuition flat for in-state undergraduates. This past fall, the Board of Governors indicated to the campuses that they would be willing to hear and consider up to a 3% increase in in-state undergraduate tuition, largely as a result of inflationary pressures, and the campuses went through their own process to hear from stakeholders about a potential increase," said UNC System President Peter Hans.

At UNC-Chapel Hill, the 3% increase equals about $211 per year. NC State will see an increase of $196, while NC Central will see tuition increase by $112. About half the UNC System schools will also see nominal changes to mandatory fees (Appalachian State, East Carolina, Fayetteville State, NC Central, NC State, UNC Asheville, UNC-Pembroke, and Western Carolina).

"I do not see the university increasing tuition for a long time. I don't think this is going to become a pattern of increasing resident tuition every year. I think it was a very unique instance that campuses sort of jumped at," said UNC Student Body President Adolfo Alvarez, a senior.
If passed, the new tuition rates would impact only incoming students and current students who don't graduate within four years.

"We have a tuition freeze under UNC System policy. Every student that comes in has tuition frozen for four years, which means that the class of 2030 will have this tuition for their four years," Alvarez said.

Hans said the prior years of flat tuition have played a major role in lowering student debt loads. According to the UNC System, in the 2018-19 academic year, 61.2% of bachelor's degree earners had federal loan debt at graduation. By the 2024-25 academic year, that figure had dropped to 48.4%.

"When the national narrative is about ever-increasing costs of higher education and the pressures that come with that for graduates, North Carolina is absolutely the counterexample. We have lower debt, lower tuition, high quality and broad access," Hans said.

Hans said federal funding cuts have largely affected research, disproportionately impacting schools such as UNC and NC State.

"That responsibility shouldn't rest on undergraduates because that's largely done at the graduate level," Hans said.

He also cited actions the UNC System has taken to reduce costs elsewhere.

"We have tried to do our part as well to keep costs down. That is most recently reflected in the fact that I directed the universities to make some cuts at the administrative level," Hans said.

Hans said UNC System schools still hold strong value relative to peer institutions.

"Our sense after surveying each university's peers is that we are in the lowest quadrant in terms of pricing vis-a-vis our peers," Hans said.

Tuition will not be affected at the four NC Promise schools - Elizabeth City State, Fayetteville State, UNC-Pembroke and Western Carolina - which will remain at $500 per semester.

While in-state tuition increases are limited to 3%, and students benefit from a tuition freeze, out-of-state students do not have the same protections.

"I believe that it's making the university unaffordable and very unfair for out-of-state students who were not told that these increases were going to happen when they came into the university," Alvarez said.

For the 2024-25 academic year at UNC-Chapel Hill, tuition and mandatory fees for nonresident students totaled $40,973. This year, that figure is $44,950. If passed, the amount for the upcoming year would be $49,323.

"It is really important to understand that a lot of these families did not project that their tuition was going to increase by over $4,000 every year while their children were here at the university," Alvarez said.

Hans said that despite the tuition increases, demand from out of state students remains strong.

"We always want to look at the elasticity of the demand. However, the demand for UNC-Chapel Hill, for example, from out-of-state students is tremendously high. They're turning away far more really well-qualified out of state applicants than they're accepting. The number of out of state students applying to Chapel Hill and to NC State continues to grow, thus indicating the market price they are charging out of state students is in line as opposed to being out of line," Hans said.

There is a cap on the number of students classified as nonresidents at each school, which varies by campus. The cap is 18% of students at Appalachian State University, NC State, UNC-Chapel Hill, UNC Charlotte and UNC-Wilmington.

At East Carolina University, Fayetteville State University, UNC-Greensboro, UNC-Pembroke and Western Carolina University, the cap is 25%.

The cap is 35% at North Carolina A&T, NC Central, UNC Asheville and Winston Salem State. At Elizabeth City State University, the cap is 50%.

As student body president, Alvarez is an ex-officio member of the UNC Board of Trustees and was involved in the vote surrounding the final breakdown of tuition impacts.

He expressed concern about how financial considerations could factor into admissions decisions moving forward.

"I asked the university if need aware admissions was the plan, and the university said that starting next admissions cycle, it is expected that it will become need aware, and the financial need of out of state students will have to be considered in their admissions decision, which in my opinion is really disappointing. It is not what Carolina prides itself on," Alvarez said.

Thursday's UNC System Board of Governors meeting is scheduled for 10 a.m.