The UNC Board of Governors recently announced they were reducing the budget for NC A&T University by nearly two million dollars because they're having too much success. This Historical Black College had the audacity to enroll too many out-of-state students. How dare they? Who do they think they are? The Board said the HBCU has a cap of being allowed to enroll 35 percent of students from other states but they went out and registered 41 percent. This was the equivalent to an additional 171 students. As a result, they must be punished for thinking they could get away with it. Never mind the fact that the university can boast about having one of the best engineering programs in the country or that it is recognized nationally for its excellence in the science, technology, engineering and mathematics education (STEM) programs. You can't go getting all uppity! You got to know your place!
According to the Board, enrollment limits are placed on colleges and universities for out-of-state students to help ensure there would be enough enrollment spots for qualified NC students. The key word here is "qualified." Perhaps if the NC lawmakers did more to fund the K-12 educational system, they would be able to find college ready students, but that's another story all together.
Although I didn't attend a Historical Black College or University (HBCU) I take pride in being an Aggie mom. My daughter is a 2012 graduate of North Carolina A&T. So is her father.
The university was originally founded in 1891 as the Agricultural and Mechanical College for the Colored Race. This was supposed to be an alternative to UNC-Chapel Hill (founded in 1789), NC State (1793), Duke (1838) since we all know the chances a black student had in getting into ANY white institutions of higher learning in NC or anywhere else for that matter.
Perhaps NC A&T is given more consideration because its out-of-state tuition is far lower at 20K in comparison to a college with similar programs like Georgia Tech at 34K or Massachusetts Institute of Technology at 57k+ . Perhaps students want to add their names to the rolls of alumni like American astronaut and physicist Ronald McNair, First African American Chief Justice to the NC State Supreme Court, Henry Frye or civil rights activist Jesse Jackson.
But shame on NC A&T for wanting to grow.
