CHAPEL HILL – The UNC System’s strategic plan aims to get more rural, low-income, minority and first-generation students to earn a college degree or credential. But one of the most powerful tools to drive student access and achieve those goals, need-based aid, has remained flat in the state budget since 2013-14, even as enrollment has… READ MORE
House Speaker Moore: ‘The single greatest priority we have’
WINSTON-SALEM (Feb. 28, 2018) – NC House Speaker Tim Moore voiced broad support for public education at a special gathering this week. “When it comes to our state budget, education is the single largest item, because it’s the single greatest priority that we have – and we’re going to continue to fund it,” Moore told… READ MORE
49er Finish: 93% completion
CHARLOTTE – Not everyone takes a straight-line path to a college degree. At the ‘Aim Higher, Achieve More’ forum hosted recently by the Higher Education Works Foundation, UNC System President Margaret Spellings singled out the 49er Finish program at UNC Charlotte, which re-enrolls students who leave school with 90 hours of credit and helps them… READ MORE
Work together to keep higher education accessible
By Paul Fulton Co-Chair Higher Education Works North Carolina’s public universities have long been considered our state’s most important asset – they offer opportunity to students from Murphy to Manteo, and in the process they serve as our state’s strongest economic driver. In fact, a study two years ago found that together, North Carolina’s public… READ MORE
“Free” community college?
Our neighbors in Tennessee invented “free” community college. In 2014, Republican Gov. Bill Haslam launched the Tennessee Promise – two years of tuition-free community college for Tennessee high school graduates. Tennessee uses lottery money to create a “last-dollar” scholarship that pays a student’s tuition after federal and other aid have been tapped.1 More than 33,000… READ MORE
UNC’s ‘uncommon education to the common man’
CHAPEL HILL – In June, a foundation established by the late owner of the Washington Redskins awarded the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill $1 million for its efforts to enroll low-income students and support them through graduation. Carolina beat out Brown, Rice, Stanford and the University of California, Berkeley to win the 2017… READ MORE
Giving middle-schoolers a First Look at college
CHAPEL HILL – Thinking about college doesn’t start when you’re a senior in high school. It starts in middle school, if not sooner. Or – especially if no one in your family has been to college – sometimes not at all. Part of the reason UNC Chapel Hill won the $1 million Cooke Prize for… READ MORE
NC Promise: $500 a semester tuition at WCU, UNCP, ECSU
CULLOWHEE – It was a bold move by the 2016 General Assembly – reducing tuition at three state universities to $500 a semester for in-state students, starting in the fall of 2018. Once room, board, books and fees are taken into account, Western Carolina University Chancellor David Belcher says, the NC Promise program should reduce… READ MORE
Spellings: “Make higher education our higher expectation”
CHAPEL HILL – It seems so simple – yet not everyone seems to get it. “A better educated state benefits us all,” begins Higher Expectations, the University of North Carolina System’s new strategic plan for 2017-22. “That basic truth has guided North Carolina for centuries. It drives our commitment to public education, including our constitutional… READ MORE
Spellings: Advising Corps breaks down ‘college isn’t for me’ myth
CHAPEL HILL – First-generation college students face so many barriers: Standardized tests, applications, financial aid forms, deciding which schools to consider – even knowing how a college campus feels. For many, the process can be formidable. That’s where the College Advising Corps comes in, University of North Carolina President Margaret Spellings says in the accompanying… READ MORE