A&T keeps tuition rate; other fees increase
Even with the state mired in an economic swamp, N.C. A&T won’t raise undergraduate tuition next year.
Fees, on the other hand ...
Students will pay more for activities and athletics, room and board, bus service and health insurance under a tuition and fee schedule approved unanimously Wednesday by A&T’s board of trustees.
“We had no choice when it came to fees. No choice,” Chancellor Stanley Battle said. “But this wasn’t the right time to raise tuition. I know a lot of universities will (raise tuition), but this board has been careful and frugal, and we won’t have to. And that’s two years in a row.”
Undergraduate tuition will cost $1,994 for students from North Carolina. Out-of-state students still will pay $11,436.
Required student fees went up $88 to $1,606. Room and board went up $200 to $5,536.
Add it all up, and a year on campus at A&T will cost a kid from North Carolina $9,136.
Tuition for graduate students went up $200, but even so A&T remains the third- or fourth-cheapest among the 16 schools in the UNC system.
“It was a conscious effort not to raise tuition,” said Robert Pompey, A&T’s vice chancellor of business and finance. “We know these are challenging economic times for people, and we took that into consideration when we made adjustments.”
Adjustments became necessary when the General Assembly ordered the state’s colleges to cut their budgets by 4 percent. For A&T, that comes out to $6.2 million.
More cuts could be coming. The governor’s office estimates a state budget shortfall could be as high as $1.6 billion this year, and state schools are preparing for cuts of 5 to 8 percent.
“It’s a moving target, and it continues to go up,” Battle said. “We put some money away, but these are times we’ve never seen before.”
To help make up the lost state money, A&T has put three projects on hold:
- A $26 million general classroom building. The design work is done, Pompey said, but no dirt has been moved.
- A $46 million joint data center that would serve the computer needs of A&T and UNCG. The universities announced the information technology project in January and hoped to have the data center up and running in three years at the Gateway University Research Park’s south campus off Lee Street near Interstate 40.
- Funds for planned land acquisitions won’t be spent until the economy turns around.
But the biggest cost-saving move involves jobs at A&T. About 100 vacant positions “will be aggressively managed,” Pompey said.
Although there is no official hiring freeze, supervisors will need to make convincing arguments to fill an open job, he said.
“The battle is going to be won or lost for us based on how well we manage our open positions,” Pompey said. “Salaries and benefits are 75 percent of our budget. It’s our biggest expense by far.
“There’s lots of things we’d like to do,” Pompey added. “But if it’s not mission-critical, we’re not going to do it.”
Contact Jeff Mills at 373-7024 or jeff.mills@news-record.com
N.C. A&T FEE INCREASES
- Required fees total $1,606. Three of the five went up:
- Athletics up $41 to $502
- Student Activities up $40 to $413
- Health Services up $7 to $212
On-campus fees total $5,536 after both went up: - Room up $100 to $3,136
- Board up $100 to $2,400
Miscellaneous fees total $642 for students who use two services: - HEAT shuttle buses up $25 to $75. (Note: Program used to be funded by a grant that has run out.)
- Student health insurance up $119 to $567. (Note: N.C. requires all students to be insured, and 45 percent of A&T’s students use this program.)
