The NC State Student Senate has voted to endorse five proposed fee increases. On Oct. 8, three increases were endorsed ($1 for Student Government, $4 for Transportation and $5 for Student Centers, in per-student per-semester increases respectively) and two were rejected ($4 for Student Media and $13 for Educational and Technology — the Ed and Tech Fee).
It is easy to mistake this vote as part of a democratic decision-making process. There was debate, comments from the public and, of course, a vote, which resulted in a written recommendation against the Ed and Tech increase, noting the increase’s disproportionate size and its “lack of granular, project-specific use cases.” This lack of specificity can be seen on the Ed and Tech fee website, which lists acceptable use cases as vague as “services that support student learning.”
Unfortunately, despite the appearance of democracy, the ultimate decision-making process for fees is not democratic. Just a week after the Student Senate’s vote, this contradiction became clear when the Student Fee Review Committee (which consists of five students, three faculty, and six administrators) decided against the Senate’s recommendation to raise the Ed and Tech fee.
When I reached out to Lance Williams, the Student Body Treasurer, for comment on why he voted against the student senate’s recommendation, he provided two main arguments in favor of raising the Ed and Tech fee: “Among uncertainty in federal and state funding, student fees remain one of the few guaranteed revenue streams for the university. The Education and Technology Fee is used to fund some of the most essential academic services.”
To be clear, I do not think Williams is to blame for the decision to increase student fees, rather I think he did the best he could in a system designed to empower administrators over students and faculty.
I attended each of the public town halls and senate meetings on the proposed fee increase, and neither of the arguments Lance cited was brought up at any of them.
Instead, it seems like they were only shared with the Student Fee Review Committee in one of their many private sessions, where no members of the public were allowed to bring up any counter arguments, such as NC State’s $2 billion endowment’s ability to serve as a “guaranteed revenue stream.”
NC State’s true decision-making power lies with the chancellor and the Board of Trustees, who approved the Student Fee Review Committee’s recommendation last week. In combination, the plan will raise Fall 2026 fees by $24 per student each full-time semester.
This will bring the total semesterly cost of fees for both grads and undergrads to about $1,250, which is more than the entire cost of Spring 2002 NC State tuition.
Not only did the Board of Trustees hold final decision-making power for raising tuition and fees, they also played a role in the hiring and oversight process for most of the six administrators who served on the Student Fee Review Committee.
Generally, the Board makes all of the top-level decisions for the university, from what gets built to where money is invested. There are 16 members of the Board of Trustees, but only one is elected — the student body president. The UNC System Board of Governors (who themselves are appointed by the deeply conservative North Carolina state legislature) appointed the other 15 members.
Understanding the power structure of the university and the Board of Trustees, it becomes easier to explain why NC State is choosing to raise tuition and fees before it spends the profits from a $2 billion endowment, or why many Ph.D. students are paid $20,000 a year while the football coach is paid $4.4 million. It happened because these are not democratic policies supported by NC State’s students and employees, but mostly the choices of 15 corporate executives appointed by the most conservative body in the state.
NC State is not unique; universities in general are not democratic. Every public university in the country follows the board of trustees model, which may be part of the reason why average U.S. tuition has increased by almost 100% in the last 20 years.
Our best chance at influencing policy isn’t asking for power from a system designed to disenfranchise us. We must take a lesson from UNC Chapel-Hill, whose graduate workers’ union won full student fee reimbursement for all graduates, and organize our own power.
