When is a Student from Ohio Really a North Carolinian?

In one of the strangest state budget provisions in years, if a student from Ohio (or any other state or even a foreign country) is awarded a full scholarship to attend one of the campuses of the UNC system, then that student can be officially counted as being a North Carolina resident. What is going on? Why say that a kid with a New Jersey driver’s license is a North Carolinian?

The answer is that this bit of definitional legerdemain is designed to evade the long-standing cap on out-of-state residents who may enroll in the state university system. Under state law, UNC campuses cannot enroll more than 18 percent of their students from non-residents. Since the taxpayers of the state put up most of the money to operate the UNC system, the argument goes, most of the places for students ought to be reserved for students whose parents pay taxes into the state treasury.

Whether the percentage is 18 or 24 or 15 or some other number is arbitrary. This isn’t a math problem where there is a right answer. In recent years, there have been forthright attempts to increase the percentage, but they have failed. This year, a stealthy ambush appears to have worked where frontal attacks were previously defeated.

Who wanted this provision in the budget? The top brass at Chapel Hill did. In the past, they have argued that their school would benefit from greater “geographical diversity” if the enrollment cap were raised. Uttering the word “diversity” has become the all-purpose thought stopper in academia – no one who questions any aspect of the incessant chant for more diversity can remain a member in good standing of the education community. Often, it’s used to hide other motives and that’s the case here.

Each year, U.S. News & World Report publishes its college rankings. The enterprise is something like a beauty pageant in that there is no objective way of saying that Princeton is better than Harvard, any more than there is in saying that Miss Wisconsin is better than Miss Arizona. Nevertheless, many college administrators take the U.S. News rankings seriously and will go to considerable lengths to move up. The Pope Center has published a critique of the U.S. News system, available here.

One of the components of the U.S. News calculation is “student quality,” which they measure by the SAT scores of the enrolled students. The higher the average SAT score, the better a school looks to U.S. News. And that is why the out-of-state student cap is an annoyance to Chapel Hill and NC State. They have to turn away some students from other states every year with SAT scores that are higher than average so as to stay within the enrollment cap.

Therefore, the budget provision is motivated in part by a desire to be able to admit more high SAT applicants from other states so Chapel Hill and State can – maybe – gain a spot or two in a meaningless college beauty pageant. The cost will be felt by some North Carolina students who won’t get into the flagship institutions and will have to settle for their second-choice schools instead. Now that isn’t a disaster. Lots of students don’t get into their first pick schools. But stacking the deck against state residents over something as trivial as one magazine’s college rankings seems hard to justify.

A majority of the General Assembly thinks otherwise, though.

The “full scholarship = state resident” provision was also pushed by the athletic booster clubs at the flagship schools. Providing a full scholarship to get a prized athlete into State or UNC costs them less – about $13,000 per year less — if the student only has to pay resident tuition. So this is also a way of stretching the funds of the athletic booster groups. They can help lure into the state the star linemen and point guards they want to see bring glory to the sports teams and have more money left over for other booster projects and activities.

There’s nothing wrong with those groups stretching their budgets, but is that important enough to go through the gyrations of declaring students who are clearly residents of other states to be North Carolinians?

Apparently a majority of the General Assembly thinks so.

What do you think?

George Leef is the executive director of the John W. Pope Center for Higher Education Policy in Raleigh.