UNC Board of Governors: No tuition, fee decreases or refunds due to COVID-19 in Fall semester

Students at UNC System campuses won’t see tuition or fee decreases, refunds or prorating if their universities move to online instruction due to the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic this Fall.

The UNC Board of Governors officially made the decision at its Thursday meeting — though the decision divided the board.

“We  believe we have to support the services associated with campuses and all the different aspects that continue to support the students while they are getting their education at one of our campuses,” said Chairman Randy Ramsey.

With infection and hospitalization numbers in North Carolina still seeing record days, many are predicting the 17 UNC campuses may have to close in the Fall due to infections as they did last semester.

If that happens, said board member Jim Holmes, the campuses will still have salary and operational costs to bear.

“They’re not going to shut down,” Holmes said. “Students may choose to go take their classes at an apartment, but …there will still be people on and around campus.”

“We’re not just going to go lock the doors and shut the schools down,” Holmes said. “These expenses will continue.”

Board members Marty Kotis, Thom Goolsby and student member Isaiah Green all opposed the decision.

“I don’t feel like it’s appropriate to pass these costs along to the students,” Kotis said. “The students and their families are struggling. If they have to go back to online and they’re taking Zoom classes, they’re getting an inferior experience, in my opinion.”

“We’re almost overcharging them with tuition” until the university system improves its online educational offerings, Kotis said.

“And fees on top of that is adding insult to injury,” Kotis said. “I understand the rationale. I just disagree with it.”

Green agreed, saying students at many UNC schools are already worried  their universities will not refund what they pay in housing even if they are forced to move off campus — a question many schools have not definitively resolved. Deciding not to decease pro-rate tuition and fees just adds to that burden, he said.

“It’s not fair to them or their families for the unequal quality of education that they didn’t sign on for in the beginning,” Green said.

Goolsby said charging the same price for hastily assembled online courses, in addition to fees for things like athletics and student activities that won’t happen, puts the UNC schools at a competitive disadvantage.

Schools like Western Governors University and even North Carolina’s own community college system offer online education at a lower price point, Goolsby said.

“I think we may be digging our own graves,” Goolsby said.

Kotis and Goolsby both emphasized that the system should have been improving online courses and offering them more widely years before the current crisis.

“We’ve seen this train coming down the track for years and it’s time to deal with it,” Goolsby said.

The state constitution says that the UNC system has a duty to offer education to the public in a way that is as free as is practical, Kotis said. The current crisis just underlines that instead of doing that, the system and its campuses have for years spent millions building “Taj Mahal spaces,” Kotis said. Instead, it should have been investing in robust online programs and other, more modern approaches to education.

“This is self-inflicted,” Kotis said.

SAT/ACT requirements temporarily waived

In another divided vote, the board decided to temporarily waive SAT and ACT test score requirements for admission to UNC schools due to the COVID-19 pandemic.

Students will still be able to submit the scores if they like and schools will be free to consider them. But they will not be a requirement.

N.C. State University Chancellor Randy Woodson applauded the move. He called standardized testing “an incredibly valuable tool” but said under the current conditions, it doesn’t make sense to require it.

“Right now our families are under tremendous stress,” Woodson said.

Woodson related the story of a North Carolina family who this week went to South Carolina to take an ACT test when they couldn’t access one in North Carolina. They were turned away when they arrived at that testing site and learned the test had been cancelled at the last minute due to the pandemic.

That’s not an uncommon experience right now, Woodson said.

It’s also worth considering that many other states have already waived the testing requirement, Woodson said. That puts UNC schools at a disadvantage in competing for students.

“We understand the value [of standardized testing] and we look forward to getting back to it when it’s reasonable to do so,” Woodson said.

Changes to chancellor search processes

On Wednesday a board of governors committee approved changes to the chancellor search process that would allow the UNC System President to insert final candidates into searches that traditionally happen at the board of trustees level at each school.

The full board did not take up the issue on Thursday. It will vote on it at the board’s full meeting in September.

At issue: a fundamental change in the way UNC schools’ top leaders are chosen. Under the current system an individual school’s board of trustees conducts an independent search and forwards at least two finalists to the UNC System President. The president then chooses one candidate to submit to a final vote by the UNC Board of Governors.

Incoming UNC System President Peter Hans’ proposed change would allow the system president to add up to two candidates to search processes. Those candidates would go through the same interviews as other candidates, but would automatically move forward as part of a slate of finalists for the position. In effect, the president would have the power to both insert candidates into the search process without approval from the board of trustees, those candidates would become finalists for the positions whether or not the board of trustees approves and the president would then choose a final candidate from those finalists.

The move would mean the President could choose candidates who would not be acceptable to a university board of trustees. Those candidates could then become finalists for the position, even over the objection of the trustees.

That is precisely the scenario feared by members of the East Carolina University Board of Trustees, which is currently holding a chancellor search. In February two trustees told Policy Watch that N.C. House Speaker Tim Moore (R-Cleveland) was aggressively seeking the chancellor’s position. The ECU trustees, whose board been divided on a number of contentious issues, has seen tensions over whether Moore’s candidacy would be a flagrant conflict of interests.

Current and former board of governors member and a number of trustees at different schools have expressed concern about the change.

Ramsey defended the proposal in a remote press conference Wednesday.

The president and the board already have the ability to reject candidates that come to them from campus-level search committees and school trustees, Ramsey said. This change would allow the board and president to groom people — inside or outside of the university system — for leadership and insert one of these “potential superstars” into a search process.

“In no way are we trying to usurp the trustees,” Ramsey said.

Candidates who are inserted by the president would still have to go through the same process as candidates identified by the campus-level search committees, Ramsey said. But the inserted candidates would automatically be considered finalists even if the search committee or a school’s board of trustees does not approve of them.

Ramsey dismissed worries that the change could lead to a further politicization of the selection process.

“That is simply not going to happen at the UNC system,” Ramsey said.