A state Senate bill that would force five public colleges to cut tuition is drawing criticism.

Bill 873 would compel the universities – including historically black Winston-Salem State, Fayetteville State and Elizabeth City State – to drop tuition to $500 per semester for in-state students and $2,500 out-of-state starting in 2018. Supporters of the Access to Affordable College Education Act say it will attract more students to colleges struggling with enrollment and finances. Critics contend the legislation targets minority-serving institutions. Along with the three HBCUs, UNC Pembroke, founded to educate Native Americans, and Western Carolina University, a predominantly white campus, would be impacted.

“This bill would effectively defund and make institutions with a history of providing quality education for black, minority and rural populations unable to provide a four-year education,” the advocacy group IgniteNC wrote in a statement. “We are not fooled by the [General Assembly’s] attempt to blame our universities for lack of ‘success’ when they have been systematically cutting funds to higher education, specifically HBCUs.”

The bill, authored by Sen. Tom Apodaca, a Republican, would call on the University of North Carolina board of governors to consider eliminating the 18 percent cap on out-of-state students for the five schools named in SB 878. The board would have authority to change or eliminate the cap if it would increase the number, academic strength and diversity of student applications at the schools.

Opponents see the bill as an attempt to whitewash the state’s lower-performing historically black universities by undercutting their finances and breaking from history with name changes. They also wonder if the lifting of enrollment caps is a not-too-subtle push for institutions to admit higher-paying white students.

“The bill as it is currently written poses an imminent threat to the quality of higher education in HBCUs as well as other minority institutions,” Angela Brown of Wendell, N.C., wrote as one of more than 3,000 online petitioners for lawmakers to drop the bill. “I'm a proud graduate of UNCP and am in dissertation stage at FSU in Educational Leadership. The idea of an affordable college education is welcomed, but not with a hidden agenda. The appropriations also come with a price tag for taxpayers and the fixed tuition does little than promote the ‘dumb down’ theory. I take a stand for equality in education at not only my alma mater, but at HBCUs as well.”

SB 873 allow UNC’s board of governors to consider changing the names of schools if they determine it can improve the number of applicants, student body diversity and academic rigor. In recent years, name-change proponents have pushed for Fayetteville State to transition to UNC Fayetteville and N.C. Central, an HBCU, to switch to UNC Durham. UNC Pembroke students and administrators asked for, and received, permission to change its name from Pembroke State University.

“I am waiting on a rational explanation as to why there needs to be a name change among the ‘select’ institutions,” FSU Chancellor James Anderson wrote in an editorial to newspapers before the bill was filed. “Let’s be honest: Appalachian State, East Carolina, Western Carolina and North Carolina A&T are not going to be asked to change their name. So why us or other HBCUs?”

North Carolina’s publicly funded black colleges are habitually underfinanced and undervalued, according to a 2014 report by University of Pennsylvania researchers. Funding per full-time enrolled student shows a sizable gap in state appropriations between HBCUs and the rest of the UNC system. The highest FTE among black colleges in 2011 – WSSU’s $10,618 – was nearly half that of UNC Chapel Hill ($17,992) and two-thirds of N.C. State University ($15,558).

“Underfunding HBCUs compromises their ability to attract students and to compete with more prestigious and well-resourced PWIs,” the report’s authors wrote. “…By being routinely short-changed, many HBCUs cannot compete with other institutions that can afford to offer sleek ultra-modern facilities.”

The state’s five public HBCUs, which include N.C. A&T State and N.C. Central universities, awarded 3,706 degrees to black students in 2011 compared to 2,507 among remaining UNC system campuses.

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