Spellings's UNC plan: Hold tuition, comb data for efficiency

CHAPEL HILL, N.C. — The leaders of North Carolina's public universities have a plan for making higher education more welcoming to rural and minority students, more affordable and more involved in their communities.

University of North Carolina President Margaret Spellings is taking that plan and its performance yardsticks to budget-writing legislators who start their annual session on Wednesday.

University leaders are asking for an extra $83 million this year and $148 million next year to the roughly $2.8 billion from state taxpayers. The bulk of the new money would go to handle an expected 2 percent annual enrollment increase to the nearly 210,000 students.

Spellings and other university leaders say meanwhile they're working to make the 17-campus system more efficient and a university degree more affordable.

Cox Media Group