(CHAPEL HILL) -- Now that the University of North Carolina Board of Governors has voted to increase tuition across the system of 16 university campuses by nearly 9 percent on average, students are expressing a less than favorable opinion of it. Demonte Alford, an East Carolina sophomore, said students should be guaranteed an affordable education.

"The state Constitution says that it should be free as deemed necessary or as far as it possibly can go. I don't think that it's fair that tuition goes higher and higher but yet we complain about people being unemployed. Well, we aren't educating the people," he said.

UNC Chapel Hill junior Matt Hickson said the timing of this price increase is very bad for cash-strapped students. "What we're seeing right now is a terrible economy. A lot of the students that go to these universities don't have the funds to pay themselves through school are working two or three jobs."

UNC officials say the increase, in part, is needed to partially offset over $400 million in funds cut from their budgets by the Legislature.

The board's Friday vote in Chapel Hill took place in the midst of a raucous demonstration by scores of student protesters angry at the increases.