Spelling out the Spellings agenda as UNC President

by Tom Campbell, Executive Producer and Moderator, NC SPIN, November 6, 2015.

Despite a questionable selection process, and in spite of legislative leadership that clearly didn’t want her, Democrats who didn’t want anyone previously associated with President Bush and faculty who didn’t want anyone not coming from academia, Margaret Spellings will begin a new era as UNC President.

Protests aside, Spellings understands the current environment in higher education and appropriately spelled out her agenda, beginning with the letter A: affordability, accessibility and accountability.

According to the widely accepted nonprofit College Board, tuition, fees and room and board at public universities has risen 26 percent in 2015 inflation-adjusted dollars since 1985. The UNC system has made serious efforts to hold down costs but system tuition and fees have increased by about 20% over the past five years, a much steeper increase than family incomes. Too many students find themselves unable to pay or forced to go into debt. 2015 college graduates with student loan debt will have $35,000 in loans, twice the amount just two decades earlier. Starting adult life with so much debt is burdensome. College debt in the U.S. now totals close to $70 billion. Affordability clearly needs addressing, especially since government appropriations to public colleges and universities have declined or remained static.

Accessibility is an even larger hurdle. Admission requirements to the most sought-after public universities like UNC Chapel Hill, NC State and even Appalachian, East Carolina and UNC Charlotte have become rigorous; they annually turn away thousands capable of doing the work but who don’t get accepted. Pressure to get high grades and score well on end-of-grade, SAT and ACT tests begins in middle school, as does aggressive extra curricular resume building to enhance applications. North Carolinians increasingly question why so many out-of-state students are admitted, when residents’ tax dollars help subsidize each student approximately $9,000 per year.

Both affordability and accessibility force an examination of accountability. What roles should the various stakeholders play? What functions, services or staffing can be eliminated or cut without impacting education? How can space be better utilized and course offerings better match graduation requirements? How can universities improve four and five-year graduation rates? How can the university system better work with k-12 public education to reduce the amount of remedial work high school graduates require and more effectively collaborate with community colleges help relieve some of the stress on space? What must be done to improve accountability in schools with declining enrollments, where space is available? What role must distance learning play and where does student accountability fit into these calculations? These are just a few accountability questions that need answering.

President Spellings’ job is further complicated by having to work with a contentious Board of Governors, an increasingly intrusive legislature, university chancellors and their boards screaming for money and advantage, faculties who believe they should dictate policy and practicw and alumni and donors with loud demands. Recent UNC Presidents privately admit these challenges are frustrating in bringing change to a system clearly needing it.

Hers will not be an easy task. Margaret Spellings appears to have a good handle on what needs doing, even if she might not fully understand the complexity of what she faces. Spellings needs and deserves our full support; anything less could prove harmful to our great University System.