RALEIGH (November 14, 2024) – As colleges across the country fret about declining enrollment, the UNC System saw 5,049 more students this year.

Some 247,927 students are enrolled at UNC System schools, Senior Vice President David English told a UNC Board of Governors joint committee meeting yesterday, while public four-year universities nationwide saw enrollment decline by more than 8%.

Part of that decline is attributed to birth rates that dropped during the Great Recession.

Nearly one-third of students in the UNC System – more than 17,000 students this fall – are transfer students, Interim Senior Vice President Shun Robertson told board members.

Over time, Robertson noted, the graduation rates of transfer students even out with “native” students who start out at a four-year university.

But System President Peter Hans – formerly president of the NC Community College System – stressed that university officials need to continue to simplify transfers to the UNC System.

“We’ve got to get better on these transfers. We’ve got to get more like Amazon and less like Sears,” Hans said.

UNC Greensboro Chancellor Frank Gilliam noted that transfer students tend to need more counseling than traditional four-year students.

“The end game isn’t to get them in, but to get them out,” Gilliam said.

HELENE RECOVERY DOLLARS

The General Assembly approved $20 million for the UNC System for recovery from Hurricane Helene, as well as $5 million for emergency scholarship grants for students from disaster-affected counties and $5.5 million in tuition grants for UNC Asheville students in Spring 2025.

Of the $5 million in emergency scholarship grants, the UNC System allocated $800,000 each to Appalachian State, UNC Asheville and Western Carolina universities.¹

EARLY RETIREMENT INCENTIVE

An early-retirement incentive for faculty that the General Assembly approved last year has proven popular, said Chief Financial Officer Jennifer Haygood.

The $16.8 million the legislature approved has been fully allocated, and 120 faculty members – particularly at campuses with declining enrollment – have agreed to retire early, Haygood said.

The UNC System might ask the legislature for more early-retirement incentive dollars in its 2025 session, she said.

---

¹ https://www.northcarolina.edu/apps/bog/doc.php?id=68265&code=bog, pp. 5-7.