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CHAPEL HILL — People need to understand the hard facts of coming budget cuts, UNC system President Erskine Bowles said Thursday at a Board of Governors meeting.

"We're going to lose hundreds of people and it's going to hurt this university," Bowles said. "It's going to hurt our academic core."

Bowles said Gov. Bev Perdue's proposed state budget will cut appropriations at the system's 16 campuses by $192 million, or about 6.4 percent at each campus. With 75 percent of the system's costs coming from its employees, Bowles said, there there would be no way around eliminating vacant positions and laying off staff and faculty members.

"We're going to lose 400 to 500 folks," Bowles said.

In December, each UNC campus was asked to prepare plans for budget cuts of up to 7 percent. Those plans, once considered worst-case scenarios, are now painfully close to reality for many of the schools. The Board of Governors heard a number of plans from chancellors Thursday, including UNC-Charlotte and East Carolina University.

In Greensboro, there could be as many as 109 layoffs at UNCG and 66 at N.C. A&T, university officials said this week. Some of the positions eliminated may be vacant, officials said, but some layoffs will be necessary, including some faculty.

"As hard as we try, there's no way around it," Bowles said. "We are going to have larger classes, less student advising and counseling, higher faculty-to-student ratio. All of this will lead to lower retention and graduation rates."

Bowles said he realizes the collapsing economy has put Perdue in a tough situation and he wants the university system to partner with her to balance the budget. He also agreed with UNC-Chapel Hill CFO Richard Mann, who predicted that Perdue's proposed cuts will be less painful than what is proposed by the legislature, which will take the next steps in the budget process.

"I've had to balance some budgets in my time," said Bowles, who served as chief of staff under President Bill Clinton. "There are always tough choices, and she's made some tough choices — some of which I don't like."

Bowles said that whatever the governor or the legislature suggests, he and the Board of Governors will fight to protect higher education as the economy continues to get worse.

"We've agreed not to whine and not to complain. We're going to be team players," Bowles said. "But nobody should make any mistake about what we are going to do: We are going to defend the academic core of this university. It takes generations to build a university system like we have here. And you can destroy it in a second if you don't nourish it and sustain it."

Bowles, 63, said growing up in Greensboro taught him about the importance of higher education to rebuilding an economy.

"I remember the economic implosion in my youth when factories and textile mills were just gone," Bowles said. "I know it's because of our community colleges and our universities that we were able to weather that economic implosion."

"Students will need the skills we can give them in this new, knowledge-based economy when we come out of this recession," Bowles said. " And come out of it we will."

 Contact Joe Killian at 373-7023 or joe.killian@news-record.com