THE ISSUE: The Board of Governors is currently considering including in its five-year strategic plan a proposal to raise the cap on the amount of out-of-state students allowed at each system school. The cap currently stands at 18 percent per school. Editorial board members argue the pros and cons of lifting the cap.
Read editorial board member Nathan D’Ambrosio’s opposing viewpoint.
The Board of Governors should increase the cap on the number of out-of-state students. The proposal would keep the number of in-state students constant while increasing the number of out-of-state students, increasing the student body population without taking away opportunities from in-state students.
Increased revenue from the higher tuition paid by out-of-state students is often the main focus of this conversation, but there are other often-neglected qualitative arguments for increasing the out-of-state cap.
This move would increase the geographic diversity of the student body, which is just as important as socioeconomic, racial and gender diversity.
Although UNC does a great job of exposing its students to most kinds of diversity, including geographic diversity within the state, when was the last time you met an international student who wasn’t an athlete, studying abroad here or on a merit scholarship?
As someone who has fallen in love with this state over the past four years, I have become more likely to stay after graduation or return to North Carolina later in life; I would not have the same feelings if I had gone to school somewhere else.
Raising the out-of-state cap would bring in — and probably keep — a larger number of talented people originally from outside North Carolina, spurring long-term growth within the state.
The low number of out-of-state students makes it more difficult for them to socially acclimate to college than their peers who attended high schools that matriculate large numbers of students to the university.
