In contrast to national trends reported by the Equality of Opportunity Project, the income distribution of students at UNC is more balanced than that of many other elite universities.
The study said 38 colleges in America, including five in the Ivy League, enroll more students from the top 1 percent of the income scale than from the entire bottom 60 percent.
But at UNC, these income statistics are more proportional — with 6 percent of students from the class of 2013 in the top 1 percent of income groups and 20.7 percent from the bottom 60 percent.
Stephen Farmer, vice provost for enrollment and undergraduate admissions at UNC, attributed these proportions to the opportunities and financial support offered to low- and middle-income families by the University.
“I think that the University, more than most public universities, really thinks of itself as a public institution,” he said. “We believe strongly in our public mission. We want to be the university of the many and not the university of the few, so I think those things together give us a bit of a head start.”
Eric Johnson, spokesperson for the UNC Office of Scholarships and Student Aid, said UNC’s enrollment reflects the demographics of North Carolina as a whole more than many other flagship universities.
“A huge part of it is we’re a state-serving institution in a state that’s still pretty poor nationally," he said. "UNC, much more so even than most public flagships, is very focused on North Carolina students."
Out of every incoming class at UNC, no more than 18 percent of the students can come from outside North Carolina, which differs from the national recruiting scope of most other schools, Johnson said.
UNC has various programs in place that focus on the recruitment and financial support of lower income students. One of these is the Carolina Covenant, which gives eligible students — whose families earn about 200 percent or less of the federal poverty line — the opportunity to graduate debt-free.
