By Gregory Childress

gchildress@heraldsun.com; 918-1046

Chapel Hill — The UNC Board of Governors is considering a major shift in policy that would prevent the state’s 16 universities from increasing their enrollments unless they meet retention and graduation goals.

Under the policy shift, which the board plans to begin debating within the next two months, schools would no longer be rewarded with expansion money by simply increasing enrollment.

Officials said the current system isn’t serving the state or the UNC system well because it gives universities incentive to admit students who are ill-prepared for the rigors of college.

“They had a lot of people who would not have been admitted under normal circumstances,” UNC President Erskine Bowles said Friday during a press conference following a UNC Board of Governors meeting.

When that happens, Bowles said, taxpayers get a raw deal because they subsidize the educations of students who drop out. And he said it’s also a bad deal for the student who drops out without a degree and a mountain of student loan debt to repay.

“Let’s get what we’re doing right before we add people,” said Bowles, who was joined at the news conference by UNC Board of Governors Chairwoman Hannah Gage.

Bowles cited N.C. Central University and N.C. A&T University as two schools that took the initiative to slow enrollment growth so they could focus on graduation and retention rates.

Instead of money for enrollment growth, those schools that don’t meet graduation and retention goals would likely get funds to pour into academic counseling and programs designed to boost performance and lead students down the path to graduation.

Bowles also said he would like more under-prepared students to spend two years at one of the state’s community colleges, then transferring to a school in the UNC system.

By first attending community college, under-prepared students can get caught up academically, and the state and the student both save money, Bowles said.

“It costs them less and costs the state less, and it gives them a better chance to graduate,” Bowles said.

He said the UNC system and the state’s community colleges are now working together closer than ever to ensure students have the best chance at success.