It’s exactly 11:30 a.m. and registration opens at noon. Each of us knows this to be true, having checked our watches seven times already, while staring at the glare of our laptops and relentlessly refreshing the “Seanet” page. The anticipated moment finally arrives and drop/add is open, but to our dismay nearly every class has the same number of remaining seats—zero.

“After registration opened, I only had six class hours registered. I was forced to choose classes that are not even in my field of concentration, and it seems unlikely that I will graduate within a typical four years. I’m not worried about not graduating with my peers, though, because they are all facing the same problem,” said sophomore and math major Tommy Siddons.

Much to the student body’s disappointment, we don’t fare much better when registration opens for the second time to allow for last minute changes. It becomes a game of risk and reward. I think we’ve all faced this stressful scenario—a class that is imperative to your chosen major appears to have seats available, but it’s a time conflict with a class you snagged that really isn’t that important to you. Dilemma—do you drop the confirmed class to try and pick up the one you actually need? You can’t afford to lose the credit hours, but you can’t afford to miss out on a class in your major that may not be available again. You decide to drop the class you have for the class you need. Unfortunately, that horrible little red “x” appears and informs you that the class is full and, unfortunately, you also lost the class you had risked to attempt to improve your schedule.

Why is it such an ordeal to obtain the classes we need to graduate? Like most things in life, it all comes down to money. According to the Associated Press, Gov. Beverly Perdue says, “North Carolina’s public colleges and universities are going to have to rely more on the private sector as the state grapples with budget shortfalls.” The private sector generally includes alumni and other donors. In that same article, it states that Perdue visited our campus on November 29 and met with current Chancellor Rosemary DePaolo. Despite the Chancellor’s appeal that “marine science research has great potential for industry and job growth,” Perdue stated that, “the private sector needs to pay for that research as the state doesn’t have the money to do everything it wants to now.”

As Chancellor DePaolo pointed out to parents at this year’s Orientation, when the University faces funding shortfalls from the state budget, it has only two options—raise tuition or cut costs. The University has managed to trim spending in the past couple years through belt tightening measures. Increasingly, however, the only way to align the budget is to reduce the number of classes and sections of classes. The negative side effect is that most students entering the University will likely take five or more years instead of the traditional four to complete their degrees.

For now, we undergraduates will have to scrape together enough credit hours to be a full-time student each semester and hope that somewhere in the chaos we manage to collect enough hours in our major to graduate in five years. Either that or hope that state funding levels improve or the private sector starts to get generous very soon.