Scholarship Politics

(Sept. 15, 2006) Editorial writers like to criticize a law state legislators approved last year that allows scholarships for out-of-state students at UNC to be paid for at in-state tuition rates. Taxpayers shouldn’t subsidize out-of-state students, they argue.

But what the editorialists ignore is that the new scholarship rule makes North Carolina – and especially UNC-Chapel Hill – a net importer of talent. That’s why Citizens for Higher Education supported the new policy, and it’s why legislative leaders left it in place this year.

Under the new rule, 14 campuses in a UNC system with 183,000 students have paid for scholarships for 456 students at in-state rates. Though the critics focus on how many of these scholarships go to athletes, UNC-Chapel Hill is an exception. Of 100 out-of-state scholarships that were paid for at in-state rates at Chapel Hill, 39 went to athletes and 61 to academic scholars.

The NCAA limits the athletic scholarships a school can offer, so the potential effect on athletic programs is limited already. But the ability to offer more academic scholarships is limited only by those scholarships’ endowments.

In fact, rather than saving money for endowments, the ability to pay for scholarships at lower rates has meant 21 more academic scholarships for students at Chapel Hill this year: 8 additional Morehead scholarships, 3 Robertson, 5 Pogue and 5 Robinson scholarships.

Chuck Lovelace, the executive director of the Morehead Foundation, said that the foundation was able to award 50 scholarships this year, an increase from 42 last year. "We actually were able to give four more North Carolina awards and four more out-of-state awards as a result of this tuition benefit. And we’re very excited about having both," Lovelace said. "If it’s eliminated, we would drop back to 42 tomorrow. It’s that black and white."

The law requires – and administrators pledge – that the university cannot use the new rule to reduce enrollment of in-state students. "No North Carolinian will be turned away who would otherwise have been admitted to this University," Chancellor James Moeser told the Board of Trustees.

Of the athletic programs that benefit, most are non-revenue and women’s sports. Of the 39 out-of-state athletes at Chapel Hill who are considered state residents for tuition purposes, 18 are women. Field hockey Coach Karen Shelton and women’s soccer Coach Anson Dorrance both say their teams are deeper as a result.

As Senate Majority Leader Tony Rand told a reporter, "How important was (women’s soccer star) Mia Hamm to the university? You can’t calculate that."