In today’s Pope Center article, Jay Schalin examines the tuition cap in the UNC system. Four years ago, the cap was set at 6.5 percent per year, but that was evidently a Rule Made to be Broken (Jay’s title); this year, tuition increases throughout the system averaged 23 percent.
“While the previous cap was intended to avoid large swings in tuition increases to make planning easier for students,” he writes, “the new proposal is more directed at smoothing out revenue expectations for — you guessed it — campus administrators.”
That isn’t at all surprising. Decision-making within our higher-education system (not just UNC) is usually geared toward making things easier for those employed by the system (administrators and faculty). Effects on students and taxpayers are of little consequence.