Business, political and civic leaders across North Carolina have spent more than a decade concentrating on ways to improve the state's K-12 public schools. But now the N.C. Center for Public Policy Research suggests that it may be time for this unusual, bipartisan coalition to shift its attention to higher education.

To begin such a dialogue, the center has issued an inch-thick report comparing how we manage our universities and community colleges with how the other 49 states run theirs. The 236-page study is said to be one of the most comprehensive ever undertaken of the higher education governance systems in all 50 states.

When it comes to higher education, the study finds, North Carolina leads in some areas, lags in a few others, and has several features unlike those in any other state.

We are among the top 10 in student enrollment in public higher education institutions, state appropriations for higher education, and full-time faculty salaries. However, the study found, North Carolina has a lower college-going rate than other states, and it is one of only seven states with no central board or agency charged with planning or coordinating higher education policy for both two-year community colleges and four-year public colleges and universities.

Three separate entities govern higher education in North Carolina. The public universities are governed by the UNC Board of Governors, the community college system is governed by the State Board of Community Colleges, and the 36 private colleges and universities are independently governed by campus-level boards of trustees.

According to the study, the UNC Board of Governors is one of only two central, state-level governing boards whose members are elected by the legislature (New York is the other state). In 43 other states, the members of the higher education boards are appointed by governors.

Our Board of Governors also is the largest central, state-level governing board in the country with 32 voting members. Higher education boards in most other states have 10 to 14 members. And North Carolina is one of only two states where the amount of power given to campus boards of trustees is not spelled out in state statutes but is left to the sole discretion of the UNC Board of Governors (Utah is the other state).

Also, while many states have provisions in their constitutions regarding higher education, North Carolina is the only one to mandate that the state legislature shall make higher education available to everyone as cheaply as possible. This explains why the average tuition for state residents is second-lowest among the states, behind only Nevada.

The center examined one key national trend in higher education governance that it said may spill over into North Carolina, one that we already are familiar with in the public schools — accountability. The center said 11 states recently have begun demanding that their colleges and universities meet certain benchmark standards in order to receive increased state aid, much the same as North Carolina now requires for its K-12 public schools under the ABCs of Education law.

“The desire for increased accountability is likely to spread from the current public school reform efforts upward to higher education,” says Ran Coble, executive director of the Public Policy Research C enter and one of the report's authors.

“And the projected student enrollment boom over the next decade affects North Carolina more than most states, but it also is likely to increase competition for state funds between the university system and other state agencies in future budgets,” Coble adds.

Although North Carolina's higher education governance is split, the General Assembly created an Education Cabinet, chaired by Gov. Jim Hunt, composed of the chairman of the State Board of Education, the president of the North Carolina Community College System, the Superintendent of Public Instruction, the president of the UNC System and the president of the N.C. Independent Colleges and Universities.

Welfare Rolls Drop 46%

Five years after North Carolina launched Work First, a renewed attempt to move welfare recipients off the doll and into jobs, only about 3,000 able-bodied adults continue to receive public assistance, according to Gov. Jim Hunt.

Nearly half of the more than 45,000 Work First cases include children and no adults, Hunt says. From July 1997 to July 2000, welfare rolls declined from 84,612 families to 45,201, Hunt says, a decrease of more than 46 percent. The overall caseload decline is 60 percent since Work First began in June 1995.

More than 26,000 Work First participants left welfare between July 1999 and June 2000, 130 percent of the statewide goal, the governor says, adding that of North Carolinians who have left welfare for work, 93 percent have succeeded in staying off welfare. — Steve Tuttle

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Where We Rank Nationally

1st in the number of our public, four-year, historically black colleges and universities, with five such institutions.

1st in the size of our higher education governing body. The UNC Board of Governors has 32 members. Most states have a dozen or so members of their university governing boards.

6th in total state funding for public universities and community colleges, with appropriations of approximately $2.3 billion per year. We rank third in funding per capita.

9th in student enrollment in public universities and community colleges, with more than 300,000 students.

9th in the average salary for full-time university faculty, at $64,304.

9th in the number of higher education institutions, including public and private colleges, universities, community colleges and technical institutes. We have 122; California, with 400, has the most; Alaska, with eight, has the fewest.

13th in minority enrollment in its public universities, at 24.8 percent

34th in the percent of high school graduates who enroll in college within a year, at 54 percent. Massachusetts leads at 73 percent, Nevada is lowest at 40 percent.