“We think we can raise the cap without hurting in-state students,” said Wanda Lester, N.C. A&T’s associate vice chancellor for academic affairs.

N.C. A&T accepted a larger incoming class in order to increase its overall student body size, but fewer in-state students offered admission chose to enroll, Lester said.

But N.C. A&T does not want to continue enrolling such a large amount of out-of-state students, she said.

Last year, out-of-state enrollment ranged from 3 percent to 31.4 percent on various UNC-system campuses.

The system fined UNC-Chapel Hill $158,225 for exceeding the cap in 2011. Out-of-state students consisted of 16.6 percent of UNC-CH’s 2012 freshman class.

Other large public university systems, such as the University of California system, are also considering a higher out-of-state enrollment cap to generate revenue.

“For every 1,000 non-resident students, the university gets an additional $23 million dollars,” said Dianne Klein, a spokeswoman for the UC system.

UC-system schools currently set their own targets for out-of-state enrollment. But out-of-state enrollment systemwide cannot exceed 10 percent — a cap the system will likely increase, Klein said.

Despite the potential to increase revenue by enrolling more out-of-state students, UNC-Pembroke, another smaller UNC-system school, consistently maintains a low out-of-state enrollment.

UNC-P enrolled the lowest number of out-of-state freshmen in the system — 3 percent — in 2012.

UNC-P Provost Ken Kitts said the university is not paying much attention to the enrollment cap debate.

“We’re a regional university that exists to serve the state of North Carolina,” he said. “It’s not that we don’t welcome out-of-state students … It has just never been a focal point of our recruitment effort.”

Contact the desk editor at state@dailytarheel.com.