UNC System President: In rebuilding trust, universities must focus on four-year graduation rates

UNC System President Peter Hans discusses the importance of improving four-year graduation rates. (Screengrab: PBSNC)

UNC System President Peter Hans told members of the UNC Board of Governors last Wednesday that nationally there has been a sharp decline in trust towards higher education.

“There’s a belief that many universities have drifted far from their core mission, delivering a sound education at a reasonable cost,” said Hans.

It’s not the first time Hans has mentioned the issue of trust. At the board’s May meeting, Hans said that higher education has forfeited the public’s confidence in recent years, in large part because of the perception that universities are overtly partisan. At that meeting, the Board of Governors voted to repeal the UNC System’s policy on diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) in favor of principled neutrality.

At last week’s meeting, Hans said another aspect of rebuilding confidence is to tie chancellor compensation and the public funding structure to measurable performance.

Hans said North Carolina’s public universities are more affordable than they were eight years ago, and the system’s “efficiency” in delivering degrees is better than it was eight years ago.

“We may register these things as percentage points of year-over-year improvement as upward slopes on a line graph. But every one of those improving metrics represents thousands more students who earned a degree on time, or left school with manageable debt,” said the system president.

Fifty-five percent of in-state undergraduates held federal student loan debt at graduation in 2021-22.

Hans said over the past seven years of the system’s strategic plan, Elizabeth City State University’s four-year college graduation rate has risen 33%, at UNC Charlotte 32%, and at North Carolina A&T’s 29%.

But over the same period, Fayetteville State University’s four-year graduation rate has fallen by 11%. UNC Asheville’s dropped 10%.

Hans warned that several of the state’s universities remain stuck with their four and even six-year graduation rates below where they need to be.

Certainly, the pandemic caused a disruption for high school students, impacting their readiness for the rigors of college.

But the different outcomes at different UNC institutions also suggest that more must be done to improve the odd for students’ success.

For those schools that have improved four-year graduation rates, Hans said they have coupled additional support and mentoring with higher expectations for student progress.

Hans said that families should be able to trust that when a school within the UNC System offers admission, it is also promising the opportunity to succeed in a timely fashion.

The baseline four-year graduation rate in the UNC System sits at 55%. By 2027, they have a goal of increasing that four-year graduation rate to 61.5%.

And here’s where one’s enrollment status matters. Eighty-seven percent of UNC System students who were enrolled exclusively full-time were able to complete a degree or credential within six years. In contrast, just over one-third (34%) of students who were enrolled exclusively part-time were able to attain a degree within six years, according to myFutureNC .

These are numbers that Hans is watching.

“Graduating in four years can be a challenge particularly for working students, but the uneven completion rates across the System and stubborn gaps between student groups are troubling,” said Hans.

“Time is money on the path to graduation, and our students pay a literal price when that path is long or incomplete.”