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Education

Charlotte schools quarrel reaches ears in Raleigh

State Auditor Dave Boliek’s office confirmed Thursday that it’s looking into what it terms “the matter involving Superintendent Crystal Hill” of the Charlotte-Mecklenburg Schools. The acknowledgement comes amid some intense drama for the district, which has a $2.1 billion budget and as of the 2025-26 academic year was serving 143,757...

By Ray Gronberg

September 22, 2026

BOG open to another set of tuition increases

UNC System President Peter Hans and his aides left Wednesday’s Board of Governors budget committee meeting with an implicit green light to entertain campus-level requests for another set of tuition increases. The idea drew objections mainly from BOG member Art Pope, the former state legislator and CEO of Variety Wholesalers....

By Ray Gronberg

September 22, 2026

UNC flagships’ pay for football lags the big guys

Even UNC System President Peter Hans concedes that in college sports going forward, it’s likely that “those who spend the most will generally win the most games.” His comment, leading off a Wednesday briefing on athletics spending for the Board of Governors, came the same day The Athletic published a...

By Ray Gronberg

September 22, 2026

More detail on UNC System athletics spending

UNC System campuses used student fees to raise $136.4 million for their intercollegiate sports teams in fiscal 2024-25, about 21.3% of what it cost to field them. Campus also directly subsidized their sports programs to the tune of $63.2 million, via cash allocations from other parts of their operation or...

By Ray Gronberg

September 22, 2026

BOG asked to keep reins on campus construction

A proposed rewrite of the UNC System’s construction-project policy would retain for the Board of Governors the ability to veto new buildings, even if legislators signal a willingness to fund them. On the docket for this week’s BOG meetings, the revision system President Peter Hans and his aides propose says...

By Ray Gronberg

September 22, 2026

A fourth of K-12 students are in two places

Here at Business North Carolina, we remain bemused by some of the numbers in the analysis of school enrollments that consultant Brian Eschbacher gave the Charter Schools Review Board on Sept. 8. One that sticks out is that close to a quarter of the students that attend North Carolina’s public...

By Ray Gronberg

September 22, 2026

Charter advocates ponder school-choice patterns

About 25% of North Carolina’s K-12 school children attend a charter, private or home school, but the pattern of choice varies considerably across the state, a Colorado-based consultant says. In Northampton County, most kids don’t go to the county schools. As of 2024-25, about 56% go to one of the...

By Ray Gronberg

September 21, 2026

UNC schools slip in FIRE free-speech rankings

Five UNC System universities, including both its flagships, lost ground in the updated campus-free-speech rankings issued by the Philadelphia-based Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression. UNC Chapel Hill took the biggest hit, dropping 12 places (down to No. 31) in the rankings in part because FIRE gigged it over the...

By Ray Gronberg

September 21, 2026

Lottery and online games: Big growth, low return

The N.C. Education Lottery’s fastest-growing new offerings also generate the lowest rate of return for North Carolina’s schools, State Auditor Dave Boliek and his team say. Online “digital instant games” account for all the growth in lottery revenues from fiscal 2023-24 onwards, Boliek’s team says in a new performance audit....

By Ray Gronberg

September 21, 2026

K-12 test scores continue post-pandemic rise

Students in North Carolina’s K-12 public schools are doing better on their end-of-grade tests, but across the state only 59.2% tested on grade level in the 2025-26 academic year. That’s 4.2 percentage points better than the year before, and 7.8 points better than the pandemic year of 2021-22, the Department...

By Ray Gronberg

September 21, 2026

Teachers and business

Over at Business North Carolina, former stone-quarry executive Tom Oxholm laments that the state’s business leaders aren’t more involved in pressing legislators for better funding of the public K-12 schools. His criticism of state policy takes in the state’s teacher-pay scale, newly adjusted in the fiscal 2026-27 budget to have...

By Ray Gronberg

September 21, 2026

Pembroke: Precedent for fundraiser meet-and-greets

UNC Pembroke officials say they set up public meet-and-greets for the finalists vying to become the university’s chief fundraiser because of the inherently “public-facing” nature of the job. They’d previously done the same thing for their athletics director search, says Jennifer McCarrel, Pembroke’s vice chancellor for communications and marketing. The...

By Ray Gronberg

August 27, 2026

Pembroke unveils finalists for fundraising post

UNC Pembroke officials are holding a string of public meet-and-greets starting today with three people who are in line to become the university’s next chief fundraiser. The sessions will give alumni and other members of the university community a chance to “learn more about their experience and vision for the...

By Ray Gronberg

August 20, 2026

NC State and Gaston land military textile funding

NC State University and Gaston College’s Kimbrell Campus in Belmont will lead a Department of Defense initiative aimed at improving production and performance of textiles used by the military. The FutureTEX award launches the Defense Department’s ninth Manufacturing Innovation Institute, and includes $36 million in the first year and has...

By Ray Gronberg

August 20, 2026

Feds probe admissions practices at ECU med school

The U.S. Department of Education is investigating whether East Carolina’s Brody School of Medicine’s admissions practices amount to racial discrimination. ECU’s is one of five medical schools targeted by the department, and one of 20 the broader Trump administration has begun probing this summer. The U.S. Department of Justice is handling...

By Ray Gronberg

July 27, 2026

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