Each time there is a tuition increase in the UNC system, we hear complaints from some people that the increases are unconstitutional because the state constitution mandates that UNC be “as free of cost as practicable” for students.
There has never been a lawsuit that has gone anywhere, despite frequent threats to haul the legislators and UNC officials into court for tuition increases.
Arizona has a constitutional provision just about identical to North Carolina’s, reading that “the instruction furnished shall be as nearly free as possible.” In 2003, the University of Arizona Board of Regents approved a tuition increase of 39 percent and four students filed suit against the regents and the state legislature seeking a refund of the tuition increase as well as an injunction against it.
The Arizona Supreme Court just unanimously affirmed a lower court decision tossing the suit out. The reasoning was straight forward: The legislature is entitled to decide when it comes to state finances and the court is not going to interfere in what it called “a nonjusticiable political question.”
If you want to read the opinion, it is here.
That ruling does not, of course, dictate what the Supreme Court of North Carolina would decide if presented with a similar case, but I’d bet everything I own that the outcome would be the same.
