First in value

Sometimes you get what you pay for. And sometimes you get a bit more. That seems to be the explanation for UNC-Chapel Hill's designation, once again this year, as Kiplinger.com's Best Value in Public Colleges.

Kiplinger's concludes that UNC-Chapel Hill's combination of academic quality and relative affordability is tops in U.S. public higher education (N.C. State University, also commendably, ranks 10th). According to Kiplinger's, at UNC-Chapel Hill - which it terms "an academic superstar that competes with the Ivies" - the annual in-state cost for students with financial need "comes to a dirt-cheap $5,912." (The figure represents tuition, room and board and fees after taking financial aid into account.)

Whether or not any college can be considered dirt-cheap is open to question. But what's indisputable is that strong support from the state and its taxpayers enables Chapel Hill to offer high quality at a relatively low cost to those students who gain admission (about 32 percent of those who apply). And here's a heartening statistic: Almost one-fifth of the admitted students are the first in their families to attend college.

North Carolina can be proud of its university system, and should continue to support it well even - perhaps especially - in hard times.

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