(The Center Square) – In-state undergraduates in the UNC System for the first time in nine years will face tuition hikes next year, the Board of Governors said Thursday.
The increase, raising average tuition from $4,684 to $4,809, takes effect next year for new students and won’t affect students currently enrolled in the system.
The governing board also raised fees by an average of 1%.
The board last year said it would consider requests from universities to raise tuition by up to 3% because of rising operating costs and inflation. The system last raised tuition in 2017. The freeze, “led to a significant decrease in average student debt across the system,” the university system said in a release.
The percentage of students with student loans at graduation dropped from 62% in 2017 to 48% in 2025.
Most of the schools in the UNC System will raise tuition for in-state students by 3% following the board’s approval of the hikes on Thursday.”
Appalachian State proposed only a 2.5% increase and UNC Asheville 1.5%. Both schools are in the mountain area impacted by Hurricane Helene and draw well from the 23 to 25 counties in the mountain region of the state.
Tuition will stay the same at $500 per semester for in-state students at NC Promise colleges and universities Elizabeth City State, Fayetteville State, UNC Pembroke and Western Carolina.
Only one member of the board of governors, Art Pope, spoke out against the tuition increase Thursday.
“I must respectfully oppose this motion,” Pope said.
The in-state student tuition increase will generate only $5.9 million for the university system, Pope said.
“This is an increase on North Carolina students and their families at a time when the recent per-capita income has decreased,” he told the board. “Income in North Carolina peaked in 2021, it went down sharply in 2022 when the stimulus ended. We have high inflation and it’s still not fully recovered as of 2024. We don’t have the 2025 numbers.”
Pope said he was asked if the in-state tuition hike were to be rejected, “Where is the money going to come from?”
The state appropriation for the university system from 2021 through 2025 has increased by 32% from $2.8 billion to $3.7 billion, Pope said. Income from tuition has increased 26% during that period, Pope said.
“I think state funding has been generous and the tuition increase because of the out-of-state students and graduate students has more than kept up with inflation,” he said.
The core mission of the university system is to “educate as many North Carolinians as possible,” Pope added.
“We can expand enrollment and continue to control and reduce the overhead, the administration, the nonteaching positions,” Pope said. “Then the average cost per student will go down and we can continue to preserve a low tuition, a frozen tuition rate for North Carolinians as many other states have done for theirs.”
