CHARLOTTE (Oct. 4, 2017) – Sure, higher education benefits the student who earns a diploma. But it also helps the rest of us. “It’s also a public good,” Margaret Spellings, President of the University of North Carolina System, declares in the accompanying short video. “When I think about North Carolina and the high levels of… READ MORE
A long-term approach on teacher pay, preparation
CHARLOTTE (Oct. 4, 2017) – North Carolina has made efforts in recent years to raise teacher pay from a low of 47th in the nation in 2013-14.1 Yet enrollment in the state’s schools of education is still down. “I’m having fewer and fewer students, even though we have a fantastic program at UNC Charlotte,” Susan… READ MORE
Spellings: ‘I just have real belief in DACA students’
CHARLOTTE (Oct. 4, 2017) – In response to a student’s pointed question about making education affordable for immigrant students, UNC President Margaret Spellings reaffirms her support for so-called ‘Dreamers’ who stand to lose protections unless Congress acts. In September, President Trump rescinded the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA), a program adopted by the Obama… READ MORE
Why the skepticism about higher education?
CHARLOTTE (Oct. 4, 2017) – We’ve all sensed it – a growing divide in views of higher education. A Pew Research Center survey in June revealed that 58% of Republican and Republican-leaning voters nationwide now say colleges and universities have a negative effect on the country – a dramatic shift from two years ago, when… READ MORE
Aim higher, achieve more
CHARLOTTE (Oct. 4, 2017) – In a wide-ranging discussion, North Carolina’s political and higher education leaders shared their thoughts last week on how we can educate more North Carolinians for the jobs of tomorrow – some of which haven’t been invented yet. The “Aim Higher, Achieve More” forum at Central Piedmont Community College in Charlotte… READ MORE
“Free” community college?
Our neighbors in Tennessee invented “free” community college. In 2014, Republican Gov. Bill Haslam launched the Tennessee Promise – two years of tuition-free community college for Tennessee high school graduates. Tennessee uses lottery money to create a “last-dollar” scholarship that pays a student’s tuition after federal and other aid have been tapped.1 More than 33,000… READ MORE
No “typical” college student
No longer is the “typical” college student necessarily a fresh-faced high-school graduate who immediately zips through four years at State U. and enters the work force. That “typical” student, in fact, is harder and harder to define. Some 40% of college students today are 25 or older.1 And in the last 10 years, the number of… READ MORE
People without jobs, jobs without people
RESEARCH TRIANGLE PARK – At a recent education conference sponsored by the NC Chamber, several speakers repeated a catchy statement to describe North Carolina’s skills gap: We have people without jobs and jobs without people. There’s little doubt education is the answer to both. Yet University of North Carolina President Margaret Spellings cited a poll… READ MORE