UNC – Chapel Hill regularly touts its status as the oldest public university in the country. Part of being the oldest university is that there are a lot of old buildings across the campus.

Now the university is looking to implement a new student fee with a goal of repairing some of those buildings most in need.

The new fee is proposed at $65.39. That is the amount that was available after adjusting other student fees to keep the university under a 3 percent cap on fee increases recently passed by state lawmakers.

“You hit a point where old buildings are pretty old,” UNC Chancellor Carol Folt said at the Board of Trustees meeting on Thursday. The responsibility to fund these infrastructure projects has typically fallen to the state.

“We can’t rely fully on the state,” Folt said, “they have a lot of old buildings themselves.”

The chancellor predicted other universities across North Carolina would be looking at similar fees in the future.

“We’re an old university,” Folt said. “We have hundreds of millions of dollars in deferred maintenance.”

She said this fee was just one piece of a portfolio approach to eating into the backlog of repair needs.

Officials said in a presentation to the Board of Trustees Finance, Infrastructure and Audit Committee on Wednesday that the university had roughly $850 million in deferred maintenance needs. Trustee Chuck Duckett chairs that committee and said this investment was necessary.

“We have certain spaces and places that are in need of drastic repair,” Duckett said after Wednesday’s committee meeting. “And I’m not talking about paint or changing some windows; these are ceilings and things like that.

“We don’t have the money from the state to do it, and I don’t foresee that we’re going to get any amount of money any time soon.”

Duckett added that the repairs were necessary for safety for students, faculty and staff.

The proposed fee was approved by the full Board of Trustees on Thursday. It will now go before the UNC System Board of Governors for approval next spring.

The university is currently in the planning process for several new buildings on campus. Those projects are expected to be funded through several avenues, including large financial gifts. A new medical education building at UNC is being funded through the Connect NC bond, which was approved by North Carolina voters in 2016.

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