UNC law helps athletics more than scholars

Treating out-of-state athletes as in-state means state taxpayers pay millions more for the athletes

Billed as a way to lure top scholars to UNC campuses, a new law will hand out taxpayers' dollars to 456 out-of-state students. But fewer than one-third are whiz kids.

Most are jocks.

The tuition tab for the non-North Carolinians will cost the state $5.2 million in the coming year, including $3.4 million for athletes, according to UNC estimates for the 2006-07 school year. Out-of-state students on full scholarship will be granted in-state status under a provision that was slipped into last year's state budget with little debate.

The money for the out-of-state students was in both the House and Senate versions of the state budget that passed recently, although a final budget has not been approved. It is part of the UNC system's overall request for $79 million to cover a growing student population in the coming year.

The number of non-North Carolina scholarship students will increase as the policy is phased in. The cost to taxpayers is expected to swell to more than $20 million annually in four years.

The law benefits private foundations that pay for the elite Morehead Scholarships at UNC-Chapel Hill and the Park Scholarships at N.C. State. Because in-state tuition is cheaper, their scholarship costs will decrease, and those schools will be able to offer more student awards.

But the bigger beneficiaries are universities' athletics programs and booster clubs, which stand to save millions in scholarship costs year after year. The law essentially shifts a large chunk of the cost of each scholarship from the private foundations, sports programs and booster clubs to North Carolina taxpayers.

That angers 19 House representatives, most of them Republican, who have sponsored a bill to repeal it. "It's a giveaway that should not be given away," said the bill's sponsor, Rep. George Cleveland, a Republican from Jacksonville.

Cleveland thinks the annual cost will eventually climb far above the $20 million estimate, "as people figure out how to game the system."

"Why should we be spending $30 [million] to $50 million annually for out-of-state students?" Cleveland asked. "It makes absolutely no sense to me."

But Senate Majority Leader Tony Rand, a Fayetteville Democrat who was instrumental in pushing the provision last year, said an increase in Morehead Scholars would be positive and smaller universities need help to support women's and minor sports. He sees no problem with the state's supporting athletes, he said.

"How important was Mia Hamm to the university?" he asked, referring to the former UNC-Chapel Hill soccer star. "You can't calculate that."

As the state's college-age population grows and competition for seats intensifies, the law has raised concerns.

Former UNC President William Friday, a critic of the growth of big-time college sports, said it is unreasonable for the state to pay for athletes, whose SAT scores and grades are well below those of qualified North Carolinians. In 2005, the average SAT score was 1076 for athletes accepted to UNC-CH, compared to 1335 for all students accepted, according to a university report last year.

"I always felt that resident students who qualified themselves through hard work should have first priority in the entering class," Friday said.

Erskine Bowles, the current UNC president, said he does not see any chance to change the situation now. "I'm a realist almost to a fault," he said. "We opposed this bill but it's the law. ... I just haven't spent any time on this because I don't think I can have any impact on it."

Sports lovers think the law is valuable, especially for schools that struggle to pay scholarship costs. At East Carolina University, scholarships cost $4.7 million in the past year and the university's athletics department had to cover about $1 million of that, said Dennis Young, executive director of the Pirate Club.