Costs

American colleges and universities spend billions of dollars a year from state, federal, and private sources. The following articles identify ways to cut costs and ensure that public investment in higher education provides value to students, taxpayers, and society.

State budget crisis brings UNC ‘overhead receipts’ under scrutiny

Aug 9, 2002 · Jon Sanders

Public universities in North Carolina this year received $120 million from the federal government in “overhead receipts.” That money is intended to help pay the universities’ administrative and institutional costs in conducting research for federal projects. It is also coming under legislative scrutiny in this tight budgetary era, as lawmakers question how the universities use that money and whether it duplicates any state funding efforts.

Report urges sweeping changes to fix “LGBTQ Climate” at UNC-Chapel Hill

Jul 15, 2002 · Jon Sanders

UNC-Chapel Hill needs a great deal more courses in “Sexuality Studies,” special theme housing for gay students, domestic-partner benefits for gay faculty and a revision of dependent benefits to include unadopted children in a domestic-partner arrangement, and the creation of a new campus office, complete with directors, staff, and an advisory committee, to consolidate academic and support resources for gay students, faculty, and staff. Those are just a few of the recommendations contained within a recently released report to the provost on “growing acceptance amid lingering and pernicious discrimination” at UNC-Chapel Hill.

Study finds foreign student program rife with corruption

Jul 12, 2002 · Jon Sanders

The Center for Immigration Studies in Washington, D.C., released in June a very damning evaluation of the Foreign Student Program. Conducted by George Borjas, Pforzheimer Professor of Public Policy at Harvard University’s John F. Kennedy School of Government, the evaluation finds the program rife with corruption and failing abysmally at achieving its advertised benefits.

Report lists myriad ways to improve ‘LGBTQ climate’ at UNC-Chapel Hill

Jun 14, 2002 · Jon Sanders

Black student newspaper at N.C. State finds a real white devil

Apr 15, 2002 · Jon Sanders

On the back page of its Feb. 14-21 issue, the Nubian featured a large picture of “The infamous Darren O’Connor.” A diabolical reddish glow suffuses O’Connor’s face, almost crowding out his features, except for the dark hollows of his eyes, which are exaggerated by the hellish light.

N.C. State to issue bonds for conference center, hotel, and golf course project

Apr 12, 2002 · Jon Sanders

North Carolina State University is soon going into the hotel business. Construction is slated to begin this year on the Centennial Campus Executive Conference Center and hotel, which would offer 250 rooms and 29,000 square feet of meeting space, to be complemented by a 18-hole championship golf course, all built on the university’s Centennial Campus.

Discrimination for diversity’s sake doesn’t help minorities succeed

Mar 22, 2002 · Jon Sanders

The controversy over minority enrollment in North Carolina colleges gets right to the heart of diversity, the cardinal virtue of academe. Although the issue has been vexing colleges for years, it doesn’t take an outside observer long to realize the absurdly simple crux of the matter. The problem with minorities is just that there are just so few of them.

UNC board votes to increase student group’s budget by 6,600 percent

Mar 8, 2002 · Jon Sanders

The Board of Governors of the University of North Carolina this week approved a systemwide, $1 increase in student fees to fund the UNC Association of Student Governments. The increase will raise the UNCASG’s budget from $2,500 to $165,000 — an increase of 6,600 percent.

Student fee increases are being overlooked in tuition discussions

Feb 22, 2002 · Jon Sanders

Although tuition increases have generated the most controversy in the past few months and years at schools in the University of North Carolina System, another increasing cost of attending UNC schools — increasing student fees — has gone unremarked.

Students not-so-surprisingly silent over tuition increases

Jan 25, 2002 · Jon Sanders

Less than a year after hundreds of University of North Carolina students marched to the Capitol to protest UNC budget cuts and large tuition increases, tuition increases are again being proposed for several UNC schools, yet the students are now mute. They were in August when legislators debated a 9 percent, retroactive tuition hike for all UNC system students (which passed Aug. 30) that The Daily Tar Heel wrote a story about it, “Low Turnout for Anti-Tuition Rally Frustrates Leaders,” on Aug. 28. “Despite the possibility of additional charges,” the DTH noted, referring to the tuition increase, “rally organizers had difficulty enticing student involvement.”