The North Carolina Senate's proposal for the upcoming biennial state budget includes more than $180 million in cuts to the state's public universities. The reductions could impact several higher education initiatives, ranging from tuition and academic centers to scholarship programs.
One proposal, a $9.5 million cut to the UNC Campus Scholarship Program, could have an outsized impact on the state's Historically Minority-Serving Institutions (HMSIs).
The UNC System has six institutions it considers HMSIs. Five are the state's Historically Black Colleges and Universities: Elizabeth City State, Fayetteville State, North Carolina A&T State, North Carolina Central, and Winston-Salem State. UNC Pembroke is the only state-designated Historically American Indian University.
Chancellor Robin Cummings said the scholarship program has a significant impact at a university like UNC Pembroke, where the average undergraduate family income is $44,000 a year.
"That (annual) $4.7 million is spread across a number of universities," Cummings said at a recent meeting. "For UNC Pembroke, it's $700,000 plus in financial aid and if it goes away, that's a big hole that I'm going to be challenged to meet."
Annually, the scholarship fund provides UNCP $719,253 total. Elizabeth City State University receives twice as much, at more than $1.54 million. The program awards Fayetteville State, NC A&T, NC Central, and Winston-Salem State about or slightly upwards of $400,000.
Cummings was one of several HMSI chancellors that held a roundtable discussion at a UNC Board of Governors meeting Wednesday. At the meeting, he shared the impact financial assistance can have on students' academic success.
Last year, his team disenrolled 500 students because they couldn't afford to pay their bills. When Cummings saw that a quarter of those students only owed $1,000 or less, he launched a campaign to help keep them in school.
"A group of community people got together and in two weeks 鈥� in (one of) the poorest counties in North Carolina 鈥� raised $205,000," Cummings said at the meeting. "We re-enrolled 238 students and 90% of those students returned this semester. That means they simply needed $250, $500, $1500 to stay enrolled鈥� that's the importance of money. That's the importance of Completion Assistance money."
The UNC System's Completion Assistance Program is another initiative that provides financial aid to need-based students. It is specifically reserved for undergraduates who are on track to graduate on time, but are at risk of dropping out because they can't afford to pay their bill.
In 2023, the and provided $4 million in nonrecurring funds to support it. The UNC Board of Governors asked for additional program funding for this year's budget. The Senate did not include that request in its budget proposal.
Several chancellors highlighted the importance of these funds in the roundtable discussion. Winston-Salem State Chancellor Bonita Brown said completion grants are crucial for her university, which has one of the highest percentages of Pell Grant students in the UNC System.
"We know that they'll move the needle, we know it would get them to graduation," Brown said at the meeting. "I hope the legislature can pick that back up with those completion assistance funds, because we're strategically using those funds to support our students who have high need but also high intelligence."
The Senate also proposed several other cuts in its draft biennial budget, including:
- $556k cut to a program that encourages high schoolers to become educators, Future Teachers of North Carolina
- $7 million cut to graduate student tuition waivers
- $8 million cut to PBS North Carolina
- $9.8 million cut to MCNC, which provides public universities with connectivity and networking services
- $12 million cut to eliminate funding for non-faculty vacant positions
- $67.2 million cut to UNC centers and institutes, which could impact biomanufacturing education centers at NC Central and NC State, the Renaissance Computing Institute at UNC-Chapel Hill, and the cross-campus Coastal Studies Institute
The Senate's proposal would also require the BOG to raise tuition by 5% for out-of-state students and increase the nonresident NC Promise rate to $3,000. Four schools in the UNC System are considered NC Promise Institutions: Fayetteville State, Elizabeth City State, UNC Pembroke, and Western Carolina.
On Thursday, the House released , which would also require the UNC System to increase its tuition rates. The House's draft directs the BOG to raise undergraduate and graduate student rates enough to recoup $30 million.
The BOG has kept tuition flat for in-state undergraduate students for the past nine years, and continuing this effort is a priority for UNC System President Peter Hans.
"I'm hopeful we could get to a decade of no tuition increases for in-state undergraduates," Hans said at a press conference at the BOG Thursday. "We'll certainly be in a vigorous exchange with the legislature about their thoughts on the issue. I think that (freeze has) served us very well."
Hans said his team is also speaking with members of the legislature about funding for the UNC Campus Scholarship program, and the potential effects eliminating it could have on HMSIs.
"Sometimes that isn't necessarily known to career staff at the legislature," Hans said. "So, we'll provide the information, point out the good work that that's accomplishing, and the impact it would have on smaller institutions in particular."
Several of the Senate's budget reductions are also priorities for the House. This includes cuts to graduate tuition waivers ($7 million) and the Future Teachers of North Carolina program ($556k), as well as eliminating funding for vacant positions in the UNC System ($12 million).
In a report to the Board of Governors, UNC System Chief Financial Officer Jennifer Haygood said it is still very early in the budget proposal process, but the board can expect to see cuts in the final draft. She said the Senate proposal, however, did address all of the BOG's "priorities."
That includes millions of dollars of funding for state employee salary increases, a Helene recovery fund, and institution-specific funding for projects like NC State's engineering school and UNC-Chapel Hill's School of Civic Life and Leadership (SCiLL). The Senate's appropriations for UNC's SCiLL exceed the BOG's funding request by over $6 million.
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