University of North Carolina beckons low-income students with free education

A new program will pay all costs for eligible students who work 10 to 12 hours on campus

By JANE STANCILL, Staff Writer newsobserver.com

Students from poor families will be able to attend UNC-Chapel Hill for free and incur no debt under a major financial aid initiative announced Wednesday.

The program, dubbed the "Carolina Covenant," requires that the low-income students work 10 to 12 hours a week in campus jobs during their four-year college careers. The university will cover total college costs through a combination of federal and state money, university and private grants, and scholarships. No loans would be necessary.

"College ought to be affordable, ought to be possible, for everyone who can make the grade, regardless of family income," said UNC-CH Chancellor James Moeser, who announced the plan at a news conference Wednesday and later at his "State of the University" address on campus.

The program will start next fall and will cost the university about $1.38 million annually. It will be available to all accepted students, both in-state and out-of-state, whose family incomes are at or below 150 percent of the federal poverty level. Under current poverty guidelines, a family of four with an annual income of $28,000 would qualify, as would a single parent who has one child and makes $18,000.

*************

The Carolina Covenant

Under the plan announced by UNC-Chapel Hill Chancellor James Moeser:

* UNC-CH will cover the full cost of four years of education for eligible students beginning with freshmen in fall 2004.

* The program will be available to in-state and out-of-state students who are at or below 150 percent of the federal poverty level. Under the current level, a family of four with an annual income of $28,000 would qualify.

* Low-income students must agree to work 10 to 12 hours a week on campus.

* The cost to UNC-CH will be about $1.38 million annually once the program is fully implemented. A combination of federal and state grants and university scholarships will pay for the program.

****************

UNC-CH is apparently the first public university to guarantee a free education to low-income students. Princeton University, which is private, made headlines two years ago with its "no-loan" policy that offered financial aid grants to all students who need help paying for college.

The UNC-CH plan was praised Wednesday by national higher education experts and student advocates. Across the country, universities have moved away from need-based financial aid and put more dollars into merit scholarships to attract the smartest students — who tend to be wealthier.

"I’m delighted they’re doing it. North Carolina is going against the trend," said Jerry Davis, vice president for research at the Lumina Foundation for Education, which aims to expand higher education access and retention. "The trend is that most flagship institutions are shifting their aid up the income scale."

Last fall at UNC-CH, 281 freshmen — about 8 percent of the entering class — met the low-income definition, according to the university. Of that group, 89 percent were from North Carolina, and more than half were minorities.

Rachel Schaffer, a UNC-CH junior from Apex, said she knows a lot of students who work 25 or 30 hours a week to make ends meet.

"I think it’s a great thing," she said of the covenant. "The cost of education is so high. People from low incomes have such a difficult time getting into Carolina and paying for it."

Beyond affordability

Expecting the no-loan deal to attract more poor students, the university built modest annual growth of eligible students into its cost projections, Moeser said. Because of the economic downturn, the number of low-income freshmen at UNC-CH already has grown by 20 percent during the past three years.

Moeser said the new policy will "puncture the myth" that UNC-CH is financially out of reach.

"This program is all the more important because of the financial realities of the state," he said. "We have the research that shows that people actually think our tuition is higher than it really is. People think that we’re not affordable. We fear that some people may not apply because they don’t think the resources are there to support them."

The university does not consider ability to pay when deciding whether to admit a student.

The university now meets 100 percent of documented financial need for all students who apply on time through a mix of grants and loans — a minimum of 65 percent grants and 35 percent in loans and work-study.

But the idea of taking on loans can inhibit students from pursuing higher education — especially students from poor families, research shows.

Jerry Lucido, director of admissions, said the new policy should make it clear to poor families that the only barrier to a UNC-CH education is the high academic admissions standard.

"What we’re really saying about this is that we want families, regardless of their income level, to not be concerned about the affordability of Carolina but to be concerned about doing what it takes to prepare themselves really well for a rigorous university experience," he said.

The work requirement might actually mean those students spend less time away from studies. Many students who don’t graduate in four years work more than 20 hours a week, Lucido said.

Students who work more than 15 hours a week tend to have trouble with academics, added Jacqueline King, director of the American Council on Education’s Center for Policy Analysis. But working less than 12 hours has a beneficial effect on grades and progress toward a diploma, she said.

"Research shows those students are more engaged on campus and more focused," she said, "and they do better."

The jobs will be existing positions in areas such as the campus library.

Sending a signal

The policy was the brainchild of Shirley Ort, UNC-CH’s associate provost and director of scholarships and student aid, who began thinking about it three years ago. She and Lucido worked to design the program.

Ort said she would not have gone to college herself if her high school principal had not pulled her aside and advised her. UNC-CH’s covenant, she said, should be a signal to young people that a college education can be a reality.

"This may not be a magic bullet," she said, "but this is a promise that is going to resonate throughout the state."

As higher education costs continue to rise, universities around the nation will be watching UNC-CH, said Patrick Callan, president of the National Center for Public Policy in Higher Education. Universities have not done a good job of making sure that talent and motivation — not money — are the determining factors of who goes to college, Callan said.

"This is a promising idea and a powerful idea that addresses a problem not only in North Carolina but in the rest of the country," Callan said.

Staff writer Jane Stancill can be reached at 956-2464 or [email protected].

http://www.news-observer.com/front/story/2915941p-2680200c.html