Dive Brief:
- A proposal from legislators in the North Carolina House would have University of North Carolina admissions officers promise certain students a place on campus only after they finish an associate’s degree.
- The Herald-Sun reports that the proposal is meant to address low six-year graduation rates that make the state’s higher education system more expensive, and, if approved, the proposal would come with a $13 million budget cut for UNC and a $3.7 million increase for the community college system.
- The House bill would require admissions offices to identify their own metrics for success on their respective campuses and offer only conditional admission to students who don’t quite meet them, according to the article.
Dive Insight:
College leaders are understandably concerned with this proposal. As The Herald-Sun reports, calculations made about suitability and fit by admissions officers are notoriously imprecise. Students often exceed expectations in college for a variety of reasons. Furthermore, a student would have to be unequivocally set on graduating from a particular UNC school to attend community college and then transfer rather than attending another four-year school all together from the beginning.
While legislators project significant savings from the proposal, it is not likely to be because of student performance. The Herald-Sun points to data showing students who start at community college and transfer within the UNC system get their bachelor’s degrees within six years at virtually the same rates as their peers who start at four-year schools.