Today I’m a little peeved at the new North Carolina budget and Bev Purdue. I’m not usually a very political person. But I’m trying to understand the long term logic behind the education cuts in the NC budget.
This weekend my roommate and I were discussing taking an EMT class together. It would be a great way for me to log some patient contact hours over the summer and into next year. My roommate had worked as an EMT before and told me that when he first took the class it cost about $165. But now it cost around $255, which is a 35% increase. This is supposedly due to the cuts made in continued education programs this year.
I can understand why cuts have been made. I can even support a lot of them. But in a time when so many people are trying to acquire some continuing education to protect them selves in this poor economy, I’m having difficulty in seeing the logic in such a large cut in this specific area.
This chagrin was reinforced yesterday morning as I was walking to campus and picked up a DTH. (The DTH is the Daily Tar Heel, UNC’s campus newspaper) The cover story today was about the budget cuts and the disproportionate burden being placed on out-of-state tuition vs. in-state-tuition. According to the DTH, there is a clause that limits the increase of in-state-tuition to a maximum of $200. Out-of-state tuition does not have a limit.
Where is the cap on tuition increases for the rest of us? I think it’s great the state is taking steps to keep UNC-CH affordable for NC residents. But a small percentage of people actually get to go to UNC-CH. What about the tuition cap on the other, less high-profile, education institutions in this state?
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