RALEIGH North Carolina's constitution demands an affordable public university, a core principle that for two centuries has helped poor young people from the Coastal Plains, small mill towns and mountain hollows grab the bottom rung of the economic ladder and start climbing.

But in recent years, as the student share of the cost keeps rising and taxpayers' contribution gradually decreases, the state has quietly, steadily drifted toward a different funding model for higher education. And that slow slide is prompting some alarms.

"If you look at the amount of tuition increase we've already seen, the budget cuts we've already had, and these next cuts, we're really talking about a different philosophical approach to higher education," said UNC system President Tom Ross. "We shouldn't go down a road like that without significant debate, because it has huge implications for the future of the state and the health of its economy."

In 1990, the state provided 81 percent of the money used to teach undergraduate students in the UNC system, according to system data. By last year, that share had fallen to 63.8 percent.

Meanwhile, tuition has risen steadily - up about 175 percent since 2000. At N.C. State, for example, in-state undergrads paid $1,861 in tuition in 2000-01; this year, they're paying $5,153.

A year ago, the cost of public higher education went up twice, first in the UNC system's regular process, and then again in late summer after the legislature signed off on it as a stopgap measure to help plug a massive budget hole.

The dual increases drove rates as much as 18 percent higher on some campuses.

Legislators say it was necessary. Students, for the most part, have acquiesced.

But some student leaders now say the state needs to take a broader view.

"I'm afraid of this General Assembly moving tuition from a secondary source to a primary source of revenue," said Atul Bhula, a graduate student at Appalachian State University and sole student member of the UNC system's Board of Governors. "I think the General Assembly needs to be reminded of its constitutional mandate."

But a public university education in North Carolina is still a bargain when compared to many states, which Senate President Pro Tem Phil Berger says proves North Carolinians can shoulder a heavier tuition burden.

"I think one of the things we've got to be cognizant of is the relative cost compared to the peers out there," Berger said. "If you would say that UNC Chapel Hill is a peer with Michigan and California and Texas and Virginia, then I don't see how you can look at those comparisons and say we don't have low tuition compared to those other schools."

Though the UNC system's cuts over the last four years now total about $620 million, there still hasn't been a formal, statewide conversation about the future of university funding. As the cuts keep coming, many educators and legislators are focused on the immediate trouble rather than the bigger picture.

But there have been jarring moments. During a UNC Board of Governors committee meeting last year, a frustrated Erskine Bowles, then the system president, declared that if the university had to keep making deep cuts, it might be forced to close one of its 16 college campuses.

That got some attention.

More recently, some legislators and UNC officials have discussed a cut of up to 30 percent of the university system budget. The upper end for budget-cut projections in recent years has been 10 to 15 percent, a bargaining position for a negotiation that usually results in a far smaller reduction.

"I don't even know how to describe what that would do, but I assure you that it would cause permanent damage to the University of North Carolina," Ross, the UNC president, said of a 30 percent cut. "The thinking by some people apparently is that we should be like states that give very low support to our university system.

"That's certainly not been the case here, and I don't think it's in keeping with our state constitution."

A 30 percent cut would total about $810 million.

30 percent cut unlikely

Berger, who rose to power this year after Republicans gained control of both chambers, predicts UNC's actual cut will be 15 percent or less. He called talk of a reduction of 30 percent "an outlier number" from individual members of the House rank and file.

"You have 170 members of the General Assembly, and you have for the first time in a very long time, a kind of changing of the guard, so you have folks who haven't necessarily been in positions of making decisions, and you have a lot of them," Berger said. "It doesn't surprise me that you hear a lot of things that I would call outliers."

Officially, the legislature's joint committee on education is targeting a $1.4 billion cut to all public education sectors next year. That amounts to a 12 percent reduction if divided evenly among K-12, community colleges and the UNC system.

State Sen. Jean Preston, an Emerald Isle Republican and retired school teacher leading the education budget process, said last week that the latest UNC cut projection is in the 16 percent to 20 percent range, but she also acknowledged that could change.

At NCSU, a 15 percent cut would slash the budget by $80 million, and university leaders have warned that layoffs would be in nearly direct proportion to the cut.

Less financial aid?

In recent years, North Carolina has done far better than many states in its spending on financial aid, but that may be in jeopardy this year.

Though Gov. Bev Perdue's budget proposal would cut the UNC budget only 6 percent , it would allocate the same amount as last year for student aid: $34.8 million. The UNC system requested more than twice that.

If tuition keeps going up and student aid doesn't keep pace, some students would not be able to afford college, and many others would graduate with far more debt.

That's part of the sacrifice, said Berger, the Senate leader, who worked his way through community college, college and law school.

"I think you'll probably continue to see even more of an expectation that those students who are taking advantage of that opportunity bear some of the expense of doing that," he said. "The theory being that if you get an education that gives you career choices and opportunities down the road, you should be able to incur some debt and pay it back down the road. I think that may be what we'll see."