TO THE EDITOR:
What will the faces of UNC-system students look like in the next five years?
With the current ideas of the Advisory Committee on Strategic Directions, UNC risks becoming less diverse in racial and socioeconomic composition.
The board is focusing on increasing degree attainment by raising the requirements for students to get into UNC schools.
This could mean schools will seek more nontraditional students and students from community colleges, thereby selecting fewer students from straight out of high school.
Restricting the pool of students going to UNC schools would disenfranchise intelligent students from smaller, lower-funded schools in N.C. whose academic ability is limited by their school resources, not their lack of effort.
Secondly, the advisory board is also considering tightening access to funding for UNC schools.
The board, which is backed by a heavily conservative legislature, has proposed a “performance funding” model for UNC-system universities.
This model would base the amount of state appropriations going to schools on certain metrics the board deems central to the system’s success.
