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Education

North Carolina’s higher education sector is getting a major shakeup

North Carolina’s higher education sector is getting a major shakeup, as Alamance County’s Elon University and Charlotte’s Queens University are merging. Tuesday’s announcement from the private institutions left no doubt that in practice, the deal is more an Elon takeover of Queens than it is a merger of equals. At...

By Ray Gronberg

September 17, 2025

UNC campuses, taxed

UNC System leaders are poised to take nearly $6.9 million from UNC Chapel Hill’s state-supplied revenue and redistribute the money to 12 of the state’s other public universities. Winston-Salem State, UNC Asheville and the UNC School of the Arts would also lose small amounts of money ($253,288, $177,831 and $75,894,...

By Ray Gronberg

September 16, 2025

UNC tuitions

UNC System President Peter Hans and his team are signaling a willingness to at least consider requests from the state’s 16 public universities for in-state tuition increases. Their recommended tuition and fee instructions to campuses would allow them to propose in-state tuition increases of up to 3%, for new students...

By Ray Gronberg

September 16, 2025

Fitch and charter schools

Critics of North Carolina’s expansion of charter schools have long fretted about what they see as soft state oversight, given that legislators have tended to stack key review boards with charter-school advocates. But never fear. Wall Street (or, more accurately, Midtown Manhattan) is on the case. Fitch Ratings is poised...

By Ray Gronberg

September 12, 2025

New FIRE campus-speech rankings released

UNC Chapel Hill improved its standing in the latest FIRE campus-free-speech rankings, but the group’s surveys indicate that students are increasingly dubious that Chancellor Lee Roberts and his team really support free speech. The school ranked 19th nationally out of 257, a 43-place improvement from its showing in the Foundation...

By Ray Gronberg

September 10, 2025

Free speech and UNC Chapel Hill

UNC Chapel Hill already has the lowest standing of any of North Carolina’s state universities in the annual FIRE College Free Speech Rankings, and that might not be getting better anytime soon. The Daily Tar Heel in a recent series of articles has highlighted the campus administration’s move to first cover and then take...

By Ray Gronberg

September 5, 2025

Supremes, lies and school buses

The state Supreme Court has overturned the N.C. Department of Transportation’s 2019 firing of an employee accused of falsifying the recertification records of at least five school-bus drivers. The majority opinion, authored by Justice Richard Dietz, contradicted a unanimous ruling from a majority-Republican Court of Appeals panel that had sided...

By Ray Gronberg

August 25, 2025

Troubles at school

Last week, State Auditor Dave Boliek and his team issued a “rapid response report” on the causes of the Winston-Salem/Forsyth County Schools’ estimated $46 million budget deficit. The basics here have already appeared in a Trib Top 10 item, but it’s worth taking a closer look given the report’s top-line...

By Ray Gronberg

August 20, 2025

UNC law dean sets date for stepping down

UNC Chapel Hill law school dean Martin Brinkley says he’s going to step down as soon as Chancellor Lee Roberts can hire a successor, or at the end of the 2025-26 academic year, whichever comes first. Brinkley has been the Chapel Hill law school’s dean since 2015, uniquely coming to...

By Ray Gronberg

May 13, 2025

State of education

The folks at Best NC issued their 2025 state education fact book. There’s a lot of data in there, culled from many sources, but a few things stand out. For starters, there’s a question about the value of a North Carolina high school diploma, specifically about whether it tells anyone...

By Ray Gronberg

May 1, 2025

Senate offers Heels, Wolfpack a trade

Senate Republicans are willing to give the UNC Chapel Hill and NC State athletic programs a piece of North Carolina’s sports-wagering tax revenue pie — but at a price. If the caucus proposal becomes law, each would get an extra $55.9 million over the 2025-27 biennium, according to the so-called...

By Ray Gronberg

April 17, 2025

Student-visa pullbacks “federal issues,” Berger says

Senate leader Phil Berger isn’t signaling any intention to go to bat with the state’s Congressional delegation for the international students at North Carolina universities that have lost their visas in recent days. “Those are federal issues,” he said. “We just have to see how things play out.” A database...

By Ray Gronberg

April 11, 2025

Seats for some high-ROI degrees go begging

Some of the UNC System’s academic programs struggle to enroll students even though their graduates likely would see a high return on their investment. According to a report to a Board of Governors committee, these include the undergraduate electrical engineering programs at UNC Charlotte and Western Carolina. Their enrollment dropped...

By Ray Gronberg

April 7, 2025

Bill cabins school libraries by grade level

A parental-rights-in-education bill would bar K-12 school libraries in state and charter schools from carrying books that are beyond the grade levels of the students they serve. House Bill 595 requires school officials to assign library books a “contact access designation” tied to whether a school offers the elementary, middle or...

By Ray Gronberg

April 7, 2025

Provost Clemens stepping down at UNC-CH

UNC Chapel Hill is in the midst of changing provosts. The incumbent, Chris Clemens, is stepping down on May 16. Former Provost Jim Dean, who’s also a former dean of the Kenan-Flagler business school, will take over on an interim basis while a national search for a permanent replacement unfolds....

By Ray Gronberg

April 7, 2025

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