Even though North Carolina has been a “purple” state for quite a few years, legislators and officials in the UNC system have done remarkably well in improving the state’s higher education system.
In today’s Martin Center article, Jenna Robinson explains what the state has done.
She writes, “Reform across four key areas began more than a decade ago. It continues as North Carolina’s legislature, universities, and community colleges make incremental but essential changes. Most of the reforms haven’t been headline-grabbing, but they’ve been worth doing nonetheless.”
Perhaps most notably, the state has moved to strengthen free speech on its campuses. About that, Robinson writes, “North Carolina leads the country in campus free-speech protections, with 15 public universities earning a ‘green light’ from the Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression. UNC-Chapel Hill led the way in 2015 when it rewrote its campus speech policies to comply with the First Amendment. The North Carolina General Assembly followed in 2017 by passing the Campus Free Speech Act, which required institutions to protect expressive activity. The UNC System responded by adopting the Chicago Principles for Free Expression. (Most individual boards of trustees also adopted their own free-speech principles.)”
Another good move was away from funding universities just on the number of students enrolled, which encouraged them to admit many academically weak students, and to a system that was based on compleed credit hours.
The UNC system has also made strides toward improved academic quality. Robinson explains: “Also in 2024, the UNC System reinstated its standardized-testing requirement, at least for some students. Like many universities, it had suspended all standardized testing to accommodate students during Covid lockdowns. In 2024, it revived the requirement for applicants with a GPA of less than 2.8. While this requirement won’t meaningfully affect the state’s most competitive institutions, it will prevent regional schools from admitting students who are overwhelmingly likely to fail.”
Other states could profit from looking at what North Carolina has done.