NPR College Admissions Story

bclintonk
Tue, 05 Apr 2011 12:43:32 +0000

rom828:

As a NC resident, my evidence is also anecdotal. S attended NC Governor’s School last summer and attends the largest and a top HS in the state. We can see from these groups that there are PLENTY of smart, talented kids choosing Carolina for lots of reasons - best fit, financial, scholarships, family tradition, desire for an incredible education etc. Carolina doesn’t have to try that hard to keep enough of the brightest students in-state. They lose plenty to Duke, Davidson, HYP. They still have a high standard of admissions. They are not hurt by NMF’s making different choices. It all comes down to supply & demand.



I think there’s good statistical evidence to back that up. The state of North Carolina is one of the largest net importers of college students. Schools like Duke, Davidson, Wake Forest, Elon, etc. attract a lot of OOS students. UNC doesn’t bring in as many OOS students as it could if OOS admissions weren’t capped, but by providing a high quality education at in-state tuition that’s affordable for many, it retains a lot of top North Carolina students. So the state is not suffering from a brain drain.

Where North Carolina could possibly do better is in college participation rates of the state’s HS grads, where it’s right around the national average—well below states like Massachusetts, New York, and New Jersey.