Community Colleges Charging Higher Tuition
Vance-Granville Community College, like the other 58 schools in the North Carolina Community College System, is busily enrolling students for Fall Semester, which begins Aug. 19.
On Tuesday, July 30, the system office gave the community colleges authority to charge students a higher tuition rate already approved by the North Carolina Senate and agreed to by House Appropriations leaders, but not yet approved by the General Assembly.
A resolution endorsed by the State Board of Community Colleges at its July 19 meeting gave the Board’s Finance and Capital Needs Committee the authority to make a tuition increase decision at the appropriate time. “That time has come,” said System President H. Martin Lancaster. “We have no choice. Our colleges need to bill students and they need to know how much to charge.”
Last year community colleges had to send a second tuition bill to students after the passage of budget legislation that included a tuition increase. That retroactive increase created a financial hardship for some students and an administrative nightmare for the colleges, according to Lancaster. He said the Board felt students would be better off knowing about the increase at registration.
The new tuition rate rises 10 percent, from $31 to $34.25 per credit hour for in-state students and from $173.25 to $190.75 per Credit Hour for out-of-state students. This means a North Carolina resident will be expected to pay $548 when registering for 16 or more hours. (For the complete tuition table, click here .)
“We sincerely regret any inconvenience this causes our students and their families,” said VGCC Vice President Fred H. Wilson Jr, “but we are mandated by the state to charge the increase.”
Returning students have been registering for fall classes since Wednesday, July 24, and new students began registration Monday, July 29. Those students who have already registered and paid their tuition at last year’s rates will be billed for the difference caused by the increase.
If the General Assembly does not mandate a tuition increase this year, the extra payment will be returned to students.
