Officials' Views Differ On Admissions Cap

But nearly 8,000 of those students received rejection letters in reply.

For many of these denied applicants, their rejections came as a result of the University's only quota related to admissions -- an 18 percent cap on out-of-state freshman enrollment.

The cap, which is based on an N.C. General Assembly statute and is in place for all 16 schools in the UNC system except the N.C. School of the Arts, is designed to ensure enrollment spaces for N.C. residents because they pay taxes to help fund the state's public universities.

But the enrollment limit also has created a highly competitive out-of-state applicant field, and some officials say UNC-CH could benefit from changing the cap to give more of these prospective students a place at the University.

"We're getting the top students from across the country," said Jerry Lucido, director of admissions at UNC-CH. "Anytime you can attract that kind of brain power, it's going to benefit in-state students and the state as a whole."

Marcia Harris, director of University Career Services, said 24 percent of out-of-state students -- compared to 66 percent of in-state students -- in the class of 2001 took jobs in North Carolina after graduation. "There is quite a difference between in-state and out-of-state students, but that's still a quarter of all out-of-state students who stayed and contributed to the state," Harris said.

But members of the General Assembly said because public universities are partially funded by tax dollars, out-of-state enrollment is a political issue open to the viewpoints and votes of the state's citizens.

Rep. Cary Allred, R-Orange, said there is public opposition to an increase in out-of-state admissions because it would come at the expense of those helping to pay university operating costs. Allred said $2,700 of each out-of-state student's costs are funded by N.C. taxpayers.

"There are a lot of people who feel allowing 18 percent of students to be out-of-state is too much," Allred said. "For every place given to an out-of-state student, there's an in-state student who has to go to a private school and pay more when they're the ones subsidizing public universities in the state."

John Blackburn, dean of admissions at the University of Virginia, said Virginia legislators' concerns about in-state enrollment have reduced UVa.'s out-of-state enrollment from 50 to 33 percent during the last decade. "The issue is almost always over (state legislators') constituents complaining that their kids are not getting into their first choice of schools in state," he said. "They're just listening to their constituents."

Despite constituent concerns, not all members of the N.C. General Assembly are opposed to adjusting the enrollment cap to favor out-of-state students.

Senate Majority Leader Tony Rand, D-Cumberland, said he supports the idea of admitting more out-of-state students because they would enhance the academic climate of UNC-CH. "The cap is probably an artificial barrier," Rand said. "I think we ought to look around and get the best students that we can."

UNC-CH officials said there are several ways to allow the enrollment of more out-of-state students without changing the 18 percent cap. Any alteration to the cap would need to be proposed by the Board of Governors and approved by the General Assembly. "I would take a look at structuring the cap so students on athletic or academic scholarship are not included in the out-of-state total," said UNC-CH Chancellor James Moeser.

Lucido said another option is changing the cap from a campuswide cap to a systemwide cap, allowing any individual school to potentially enroll more out-of-state students, provided the total student population of the 16 UNC campuses remains at 18 percent.

But Rand said that while there has been discussion on the topic of adjusting the out-of-state enrollment cap, there are no present plans to recommend any changes. "If I were king for a day, this is something I would take a look at," he said. "But changing it is unlikely to happen in the near future."

Andrew Payne, president of the UNC Association of Student Governments and a nonvoting BOG member, said most BOG members see no reason to change the cap. "If we let individual campuses determine their own admissions policies, there is the possibility that our university system will be overrun with out-of-state students," he said. "Out-of-state students play a vibrant role in university life, but we have to make sure that the university system serves the citizens of this state."

Many officials say defining how UNC-CH can best serve the state is the most critical aspect in the debate about out-of-state enrollment. Lucido said the benefits of post-graduate work must be weighed against the importance of education that is accessible to N.C. residents.

"We do have a mission, as a public university, to serve this state," he said. "The question is, should we do that through graduate research, through public service or through undergraduate enrollment."

The University Editor can be reached at udesk@unc.edu.