In today’s Pope Center piece, Jay Schalin writes about the success the UNC system had in mau-mauing the North Carolina General Assembly into actually increasing its budget this year, despite the state’s budget woes.

More money will go into dubious research projects and futile efforts at social engineering, especially “retention and graduation” programs meant to increase the numbers of low-income students the system enrolls and graduates. The legislators just couldn’t say no to UNC’s claims that to cut its spending would mean doing great damage to the state’s future.