Based on the 6.5 percent tuition increase for all UNC system schools, 20.8 percent of N.C. State’s tuition increase, about 2 million dollars, will go to quality and accessibility. But the specifics of exactly where the money is going are still not set and some students said they feel the administration should determine that as soon as possible.

“It could only help to specify where this extremely large allotment of money will go next year,” Zach Adams, Student Senate president, said.

According to Adams, the provost doesn’t know where the money will be allocated now because he wants to make an informed decision, but said he is sure he has at least some idea.

The process of determining where the money will go is called the “compact planning process,” according to Larry Nielsen, provost, executive vice-chancellor and co-chair of the Tuition Advisory Committee. The plan will cover the next four years and each individual college will submit a proposal to Nielsen detailing how much money it needs for its programs.

“The compact planning process is a bottom-up approach that the faculty and staff are feeding to the departments, the departments to the colleges and the colleges to me,” he said.

“Accessibility,” according to Nielsen, includes things like making sure there are enough seats in class sections so students can progress toward graduation at the desired rate.

“Quality,” Nielsen said, includes a wider variety of things like making sure new majors and minors have enough resources and colleges have enough advisors.

“Quality goes to a much larger range of things … trying to make the educational experience as effective as possible,” he said.

Nielsen said the planning process could take up to six months before a plan is finalized for the next four years.

“I appreciate the University looking into planning for the future, but I still think they have a plan for right now,” Will Quick, Student Body president and co-chair of the Tuition Advisory Committee, said.

Nielsen said it is important to establish a plan that projects to the future that will lay out the investment priorities for the University.

“It’s not the best way to do business to be making decisions for how we’re going to invest our dollars in July, in July,” he said.

According to Quick, he does not claim to understand how the money would be spent but an overall plan should be available so students know what their tuition increase is going toward. Quick said he felt the money should go toward programs that benefit all students, not just a select few like the library and better technology in the classrooms.

“I would be astounded and ecstatic both if they spent more than four percent of the tuition increase on the library,” he said.

Quick said the library has received an average of 0.33 percent of the entire increase in the last three years and only 1.67 percent on technological improvements. He also said on average, academic support has received 17.33 percent of the tuition increase over the last three years.

“The University offers a lot of programs that are very good programs that benefit a lot of people … but those same people that benefit from smaller programs would also benefit from money put in areas that are essential,” he said.

Quick said there are many programs the University offers that students can get through without using, but he said there is not a single student who can get through the University without using some of its technologies.

“The answer the provost gives that a lot of people benefit from the smaller programs is true, but you can’t say all students do,” Quick said. “Everybody benefits from the library and technological improvements.”

Nielsen said the increase is nowhere near sufficient for the quality and accessibility category, but there is a plan to put money toward the library.

“As of yet, there’s no specific plan. There’s no specific plan to do anything yet,” he said. “But the library is an important item.”

Nielsen said he heard the message from the students in regards to the library, but that there is only so much money to go around. He said he asked the deans of the colleges not to ask for more than two to five percent of their current budgets.