News Release

CHAPEL HILL – The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill will expand its existing merit-based scholarship program next fall to help attract more top high school graduating seniors from North Carolina and beyond.

"We want to keep more of the very best and brightest students from North Carolina at home," said Chancellor James Moeser. "At the same time, we will continue to honor this university’s innovative commitment to need-based financial aid to ensure deserving students have the opportunity to earn a Carolina diploma."

Beginning next fall, UNC-Chapel Hill’s latest merit-based scholarship initiative will offer 55 North Carolina high school graduates with renewable merit-based scholarships based on academic achievements that are valued at $10,000 over four years. Another five out-of-state students will benefit from merit awards worth $60,000 toward a four-year undergraduate degree.

"This is an excellent step toward enhancing our ongoing efforts to provide a significant number of merit-based scholarships that can make a real difference in enhancing future first-year classes that are already quite strong academically," Moeser said. "These scholarships are essential if we are going to continue competing effectively with the nation’s very best public and private universities for the best students and faculty."

University trustees today (March 24) finalized a funding plan to launch the expanded scholarship program. The change resulted from a proposal developed by Faculty Chair Judith Wegner to devote 100 percent of all net revenue generated by the university’s trademark licensing program to support general student scholarships.

That change will allow 25 percent of those funds, which currently go to the department of athletics, to be used to generate a new pool of funds for merit-based scholarships. The other 75 percent of the trademark revenue – generated by the sales of T-shirts and other merchandise with the Tar Heel name and logos – will continue to support general scholarships, primarily need-based financial aid.

In 2003-04, the university’s net trademark licensing royalties and related investment proceeds generated nearly $3.5 million for distribution, with $2.6 million going for student scholarships and about $868,000 going toward athletics. These revenue figures typically fluctuate each year.

The athletics department will receive revenue from a new student athletic fee rate as part of a plan approved by the trustees and UNC Board of Governors to enhance the Olympic sports program. The university’s 28-sport athletics program is among the nation’s most comprehensive; Olympic sports have played a major role in its success.

Carolina already meets 100 percent of the demonstrated financial needs of undergraduate students. Groundbreaking financial aid policies and innovative programs like the Carolina Covenant, which promises qualified low-income students a debt-free education, have helped make the university a national model for preserving affordability and accessibility. Both need- and merit-based aid for students supports the university’s parallel goals of promoting access and excellence, as well as effectively recruiting, enrolling and retaining highly qualified students.

The university offers excellent merit-based scholarship programs including the Morehead, modeled after the Rhodes at Oxford, and, more recently, the Robertson, offered jointly with Duke University through generous private funding. In addition, the university annually awards more than 100 merit-based scholarships to entering first-year students. Carolina also enrolls more than 130 National Merit Scholars each year. The Carolina First Campaign, a comprehensive fund-raising effort, currently includes new merit- and need-based scholarships among its priorities.

The latest focus on expanding merit-based scholarships resulted from the UNC Board of Trustees’ long-standing concern that the university was still losing too many of North Carolina’s highest-achieving high school seniors to out-of-state universities.

Of the 786 top North Carolina students admitted to the university in 2004, fewer than half enrolled. Those top students choosing not to enroll posted an average Scholastic Aptitude Test score of 1,433. Half of those students chose to enroll outside of North Carolina. University officials attribute the lack of merit-based scholarship offers as major factors in those students’ decisions.

"We are taking a holistic approach to achieve a vision of excellence we have for this university to benefit the people of North Carolina," Moeser said. "We believe it is important for our future first-year classes to include more of the very best students North Carolina’s high schools produce."

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Contact: Mike McFarland, (919) 962-8593