Politics of Tuition Increases
Harold Pettigrew talks about how, during NC State Board of Trustees discussions on tuition increases, he as the Student Body President had to balance the needs of the university with representing the student perspective.
Interview on 2012-11-02 00:00:00 -0400
Transcript
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I don't know if there was a defining issue that year. Well what I started to see toward the end of the term, however-
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and these issues came up after my term-that continual environment of tuition increases, so that's perhaps always the toughest area to truly deal with.
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You hear the needs of the university, you're hearing the case, and ultimately it's, we want to charge you more for this,
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and everything I just mentioned about the Wolfpack Student Initiative, the basis of that was financial need. So there was always this push and pull,
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which I'm sure the current students are dealing with right now. Whether it was increasing student fees or tuition there was always this environment
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of balance, or a push and pull so to say, between what are the true needs of the university and how can we make a truly informed decision
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without undermining the ability of students to make a difference? Generally the balancing act for us as student leaders
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was not to simply let passion drive a discussion but to have it be very rational dialogue, very professional dialogue quite frankly,
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for the university not to simply take for granted we're students, we'll be here only for a couple years. They have to have a longer term approach,
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and for us they're trying to charge us more; I can't afford it and my friends can't afford it. So there was always that push and pull,
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but just making sure they understood we were very invested and informed about the topics and that our opinions certainly should not be taken for granted.
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So particularly at the board of trustee level, being the student representing thirty thousand students so to say, it was always that, at least for me,
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that central perspective, to make sure that they knew the mature perspective I was bringing to the table
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and that we would have a very informed dialogue about any of those types of decisions.
This video is an excerpt from a longer interview. Contact the Special Collections Research Center to request the transcript of the full interview.
