UNC in the News
By: Michael Dobbs, Staff Writer
Contributor: Jay Matthews, Staff Writer

Excerpts from an Article in The Washington Post, Thursday, October 2, 2003.

UNC to Pay Costs of Low-Income Students

Children from low-income families will be able to attend the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill without incurring debt in a groundbreaking program to reduce the burden of rising tuition costs.

North Carolina is believed to be the first public university in the country to agree to meet the full education costs of poor students, including tuition and room and board. According to a recent congressional study, cost considerations prevent nearly one in two college-qualified, low-income students from attending a four-year academic institution.

“Our clear message is that there are no financial barriers” to attending UNC-Chapel Hill, Chancellor James Moeser said. “College should be possible for everyone who can make the grade, regardless of family income.”

Although praising North Carolina for its initiative, officials at other universities said it is likely to be difficult to introduced similar programs in other parts of the country in the near future. Generous state subsidies for higher education have long permitted colleges in North Carolina to offer lower tuition and more generous student financial aid packages than schools in most other states.

The most extensive financial aid program in the country is probably at Princeton, a private university, which announced in 2001 that it was replacing student loans with grants. The university now spends $52 million a year, up from $32 million in 2001, on subsidizing tuition for its 4,500 undergraduates.

By contract, the UNC-Chapel Hill program will cost $1.38 million a year when fully phased in four years from now. Annual tuition at UNC-Chapel Hill for in-state students if $4,072, compared with $28,540 at Princeton. The total annual cost of attending UNC-Chapel Hill is about $13,000 compared with nearly $40,000 at Princeton.

College tuition costs have risen sharply over the past two decades, according to recent studies, with much of the burden falling on the working poor. A recent congressional analysis found the cost of a four-year college education increased by 202 percent since 1981, far more than the 80 percent rise in the inflation index over the same period. Average student debt has doubled over the last decade, to about $17,000.

Under the North Carolina program, eligible students will be required to work 10-12 hours a week on campus to help cover their costs. Studies have shown that students who work more than 15 hours a week can have difficulties graduating. Low-income students often abandon plans to attend college or drop out because of too much debt or too heavy a workload.

Students from families with incomes below 150 percent of the federal poverty level—or about $28,000 for a family of four—will be eligible for the program. University officials said about 8 percent of the next freshman class, or about 300 students, may benefit. In the past, federal and state financial aid programs have covered about 60 percent of these students’ costs.

Sheldon Steinbach, vice president of the American Council on Education, a group that represents colleges, described the announcement by UNC-Chapel Hill as “a dramatic step” that will likely encourage other universities to seek ways to help low-income students.

The North Carolina program is “very innovative and creative,” agreed William E. Kirwan, University of Maryland chancellor. But he cautioned that it does not apply to lower-middle-income families, who are feeling squeezed by tuition costs.

The rising cost of higher education has led Congress to try to rewrite the Higher Education Act to include tougher accountability provisions for colleges and universities that receive federal money. A bill authored by Howard P. “Buck” McKeon (R-CA) would require colleges to provide detailed information about rising tuition costs to the Department of Education, which would publicize them.

In a written report, McKeon predicted that more than 2 million college-qualified students will be “completely denied the opportunity for a post-secondary education” by the end of the decade.