Senior fellow at the American Enterprise institute lynne cheney. Television for serious readers. Next remarks from carol fols, chance hrar from the university of North Carolina chapel hill. This is an hour. Our government today is carol folt chancellor of the university of North Carolina chapel hill. A nationwide search following the resignation of the former chancellor amid a scandal that put the schools accreditation and ncaa standing at risk. An investigation found that about 3,000 students, many athletes, took sham classes over two decades and received grades not based on academic performance. They instituted some 70 reforms. Nonetheless, the accrediting body initiated inquiries. Sanctions are not out of the question. And unc, instituted the carolina covenants, a program that awards low income students a combination of grants, scholarships and Work Opportunities to avoid Student Loans and graduate debt free. Today our speaker will address the importance of preserving access to an Affordable College education. Please give me in giving a warm welcome to chancellor carol folts. Thank you for introducing me. Its such a pleasure to be here. Im looking forward to this and also your questions. Be sure to put down a lot of good ones. I have to tell you i wouldnt have any other job in america. Yes, chapel hill people [ applause ]. If youre interested in Higher Education i think this is the best time to be a president or a chancellor in Higher Education in america. What happens in Higher Education is so important for the nation. Our business is a very serious one. People take it very seriously. We have a huge impact on the individuals of the nation. It is a time when we have the opportunity to shepherd in the great changes taking place. So its a real pleasure to be here. Carolina itself has a bigfoot print. It was the first to graduate the only Public University to graduate students in the 1700s. And it has an extremely proud legacy. And we are as proud of what were doing to get past these issues that you raised. Were very very proud of what were trying to do. I will say working in Higher Education, the new normal is to be facing some of the greatest issues of the day. We are trying to deal with sexual assault. We are all trying to help that country understand the Value Proposition of Higher Education. These are the issues that we face. These are the issues that those of you in the press cover all the time. So i think its really important that we have these conversations. Its exciting to be at the kickoff of the month of august speaking to you today particularly about the importance of preserving affordability, accessibility, and attainment in a Great College degree. I would also like to thank the National Press club members, everyone at the head table. Mary cooper will be our speaker. First time to have a graduate speak. Welcome. Its wonderful all of you here. We have members from the North Carolina delegation. Staffs are here. Thank you all for coming. Of course carolina alumni, thank you for being here. I thought i would start by giving an overview of what the university of North Carolina chapel hill is. We rarely understand whats going on in a university. Its good to know what are we trying to bring our students into. Unc or we call it carolina has a budget between 4 billion and 6 billion a year. It depends whether im including our hospitals or not. So its a major enterprise. It has more than a 3 billion endowment. We raise a lot of money through philanthropy. That is in a single year. That happens to be carolinas best year ever in philanthropy. So our alums are absolutely sticking with us through the times of trial. And i think that makes a really great statement. We also get a lot of money from research. Carolina has been increasing its research portfolio. Almost a billion dollars in research. Thats mostly washington based federal funding from the nih. Its the top seventh in nih. This is a Huge Investment in research that will save lives and change the world. We bring in more than 7 billion estimated in revenue to the state. More than 10,000 people employed in various aspects of our institution. We have more than 33,000 applications for less than 4,000 entry positions. And top 10 top one programs in so many fields from medicine Global Health, pharmacy humanities, social sciences. And i think one of the points i want to make is accessibility and affordability, especially of low income first generation should get them to the best universities in america. I think thats really important that we consider that part of that mission. Its important that they come in and understand whats happening in the world. We just recently had a number of stories you probably read about in the paper. Historic partnership with gsk for chapel hill to solve aids. That program is going to have a number of under graduates that will be working in it. We have a Population Center that got 185 million grant from usaid, the largest grant in history last year to basically look at the metrics for Global Health and gender relations throughout the world. We received a 100 million gift to build entrepreneurial through pharmacy. This is what we want students to learn about as they are going to college. So exactly two weeks from today hard to believe classes are going to begin at carolina. Its clearly one of the best times of the year. You just cant beat the buzz that happens on the campus. It wakes up. Its exciting. There are people every place. And it is a school where people smile and they sing as they walk along. I think its the light blue. That helps. It is really exciting. But they also are scared to death. This is a big deal. Theyre coming to college. And it is our job when they come to make sure they can be successful. I think thats a part of everything weve got to think about doing. For many of them at carolina its over 20 . They will be the first generation to attend university. Were really proud of that. Thats so important. More than 14 of them are going to come from the lowest income families, Median Incomes on of 22,000 or 23,000 a year. We will have students coming from all reigns of the socioeconomic across the country. But thats what that place feels like. I tell students at the start of the year to try to remember the magical feeling they feel on that very first day. That anything is possible. Whatever they want is what they are going to really be able to find their work to do. And i think thats my message always to them. Feel as good on the second day as you did on the first. Or remember that there is no limit. Of course that first day on august 18th between that day, there is another important day on the calendar. Thats friday, august 7th. Tuition bills are due. I dont know how many of you have students going to college right now. How many in here have students paying tuition bills . Okay. Well, im going to give you a number i think will shock most people. The tuition at unc chapel hill is about 8,300. It is among the lowest tuitions in the country and among the top peer institutions peers in public universities. Its at the bottom. We have very low tuition. The debt for students at North Carolina has not changed in inflation scaled dollars for more than 15 years. So this is going to be a story about things that do work to try to do it. And i think its really important because we have to understand how to scale the parts of our institutions that are working to be more effective. We have about 20,000 under graduates. And of those 43 , even with that tuition, will receive a form of needbased aid. So there is still great need out there. The Median Income in North Carolina is less than 50,000 a year. So this can still be an important part of their experience. North carolina is one of possibly two public universities that still is need blind. Which means we dont consider Patient Income in the application and the only one that meets full need, which means after they fill out their equations, we cover the rest of that need. This is aoeenormously important to obtain a degree. Students at carolina the start of the Academic Year is of great excitement. Less than half will be going to college. They dont have that same sense of optimism. Many selfselect and think they arent going to be able to do it. Theyre fearful they wont be able to afford it. And theyre afraid to assume a debt load that they think they will never be able to pay. New data show that the average grad debt at graduation is about 35,000 for students who do go to college. At carolina its 17,000. So again keeping those costs low is a way to really help attract capability students to try. Its very important. If you look at the United States statistics, we have about 3. 2 Million Students graduating from high school. About 1. 8 million of them will apply to a fouryear university. But in the end, only about 900 million of them are going to graduate. So that means about 2. 3 million of our graduates right now High School Kids that could do anything that are the town pool of america, arent even making it into college. More than 50 are on average not graduating. So theres a lot of work here. Many students who start dont finish. Its known to be a very negative cycle for them. We also know that Educational Attainment is one of the most prominent determine ant. It reinforces the socioeconomic gaps, the disparities i know everyone wishes we could eliminate. Applications are going down. At the very moment when we know the skills of college are more valuable. No matter what you read, we know the lifetime earnings of someone with a College Degree are considerably greater. We know the new knowledge economy, the one bursting and growing, the one the country wants to compete in is requiring the skills of a college graduate. And its not just their stem skills and their programming. Its their writing skills. Its their critical thinking. Its their problemsolving. Without those, we will not bring the 2. 3 Million High School students every year back to be part of a flourishing national economy. So we know we have to do it. And im going to give you some examples of ways i think its working well at unc. Things i think can be scaled. First of all, you have to build universities that draw in the talent of people from all incomes and all backgrounds. If you are selfselecting for weight, youre going to get it. But thats hard. Most schools in the last five years when we had the pooling of funds from the state most dropped their needbehind commissions programs. They couldnt believe they could afford it. We need to know we can get them directly into the fields that contribute to the knowledge economy to they can be part of that burgeoning growth area. We know it is a world of change. If we are not getting students into programs that teach people change i dont believe you want to put people into single skill programs. Everybody knows the skill today will probably not even going to be the business hiring in five years. It is our job to be training them to get the diverse skills of the multifaceted learner. So our universities have to be the catalyst the place where we nurture this type of opportunity. If we arent, we have to get on the ball fast. Thats 3. 2 Million Students a year that could be going where we want to go. The hamilton project released a report that showed that Family Income is maybe the strongest predictor of Graduation Rate. That is a very sad statistic. Because they can even control for s. A. T. And other levels of attainment. So that is something we are constantly trying to think about. The likelihood of a student from high income bracket graduating is five times greater than students from the lowest income bracket, all other things being equal. So these disparities are growing and they play out even more in under represented populations. The trends are even greater. I have spent my whole life in higher ed wanting to fight these trends. I have actually found that southern part of heaven in North Carolina. Because i actually was able to come to the Public University that really is doing this in such a deep and strong way. 14 times kiplinger named carolina the best value in American Public universities. New york times recently ranked carolina the third most economically diverse top universities. And to be on that list you had to have Graduation Rates above 70 . Ours are much higher than that. Only three public universities were on the list. Yet public universities educate more than 70 of students in america. So im proud of what we accomplished. Im going to use some examples. That doesnt mean its all right. We have a ways to go. How did carolina get here . You have to go back to 1789. I wont make you go that far back with me. When carolina began as a great experiment. It came out of the revolutionary war. It was an idea if were going to have freedom, we better have education. It was actually founded the same time we had our first president was inaugurated. It said we were going to give education to improve the life of new york carolyn yanns at the lowest price practicalable. The First Student walked 133 miles to get to that university. But we still pride ourselves to reaching out to everybody in the community, not only in the state but across the country. And bringing people from every kind of means to the university. How do we do it . Well, its important that we think i have to start by saying we do it in part because we still have a very generous state. North carolina is still supported well. We have had more than 30 cuts in the last five years. But we are still generously supported. That is important. All of the future has to find a way to continue to get some public dollars. If we care about this, public dollars are going to be important. Even though we supplement with philanthropy and other saturdays sorts of ideas. That is a Real Advantage for us. Americans have a 1 trillion National Student debt. They see tuition rising. So we have to be able to counter that. We have low tuition. That helps counter that. But to keep our tuition low, we have to make choices all the time. And some of those are not fun, are not very they hurt. In fact, we havent been able to give faculty raise to the level we would like. Yet faculty is bring anything a billion dollars in research. It is a very competitive environment. Youre dealing in your university with very tough decisions because this accessibility and affordability is probably at the heart of everything that still tends to be our default position. But it wont exist if we dont continue to have that great faculty. So with affordability, keeping tuition and debt low is a top priority for us. So is need blind and meeting the demonstrated need. And i think those ill come back to in a minute with an example from the carolina covenant. How that has had a huge influence on student success. And ill come back to that. Accessibility has been the next part. That means we do a lot of action going out and going into all 100 counties. Carolina still has almost 82 of the undergraduates come from the state of North Carolina. So that covenant with the state has been very important. I think thats why the state still supports that at such a high level. Thats a very strong relationship. Lots of interNational Students at the graduate level. Very global campus. But thats important. We have also developed a lot of programs to go right out into high school. If you want to solve these problems, you cant start with the applicant. You need to get into the high schools. Ill give a clear example of that in a moment. You also have to focus when theyre on campus very much on the advising especially what take place in the first year. And if you dont put the money into that first year and the money into getting them ready no matter how much money you spent on getting them to start, they arent going to be successful. The third area we do is try to make sure that were doing it in an institution that is still at the highest level of excellence. I dont believe affordability and accessibility without strength of Program Means much. I dont think low income students should be put in less than great education. I think thats completely unfair. And i think you need these three working together to really solve these problems. Our Graduation Rates are 80 at four years and over 90 at six years. Putting carolina right up there with the best of the privates. And when a student is accepted to a school where they believe they are going to graduate, there is a lot of information coming out. Some good data i think you collected that shows believing in them investing in them is a major factor that will determine their success. You heard a little bit about the carolina covenant. Thats this program that brings students in from very low income. The big thing about that program, not only do we work to get them in, they graduate with no loan. And they do work study, they get grants. But that complete belief in those students has been so important. The Program Began in 2006. Looking at students from the exact same income and similar numbers and comparing Graduation Rates preand post covenant its been extraordinary. Precovenant low income students in that program graduated at best at 57 . Africanamerican males were graduating down in the 30 . Since the covenant has been in, the entire programs average of Graduation Rate is just 3 lower than that 80 . It has skyrocketed. And the africanamerican males has doubled. So this investment and the advising that goes along with it is very important. I could tell you stories of students. They come in with extraordinary records. Their average gpa coming in is over 4. 0. They are very talented students. Yet they have families back home that need them. They dont have the advising. And they frequently lack the confident. We have so many who say im going to drop out. Yet if they get that advising they stick with it. The stories are amazing. I met three covenant scholars recently. All three told me stories about their lives. And two of them graduated had great jobs. One already bought a house. Two of them were putting their mothers through college. Because their mothers had been so instrumental in what they were doing. So these pay forward for society in an incredible way. We also have programs that reach directly into the high schools. In North Carolina, the low income high schools, about 65 of them, we are part of a program called the carolina advising core. It is probably one of the best programs in america right now. It started in virginia and was housed at unc and now has branched out. They take recent graduates, the most dedicated students you could ever meet, and put them into high schools. Were in 65 of the 90 poorest schools in North Carolina right now. The time in those schools that can be given to any student that wants to apply to college, can you guess how much time they have to spend talk to go them about college . Less than five minutes a year. They dont have parents, families people to get them in they cant possibly do it. Since they have gone in with the advising program they have seen application rates about 12 to 15 just in the first couple of years. I went to one of them and i talked to the students there. A number of them will go to Junior College. And another from Junior College to carolina. I went as a Junior College as part of my own background. I had no idea how meaningful that would be. The students had a couple on tape afterwards and said the chancellor at unc went to Junior College. So i dont think we can underestimate how few touches can have such an impact. The students come in and get that advising with a young, amazing North Carolina graduate. And it just changes the world. Then we built another program to work with the Junior Colleges and carolina in about the last six years started to really can admit students. If they get selected in their first year and they achieve a certain level of success