News-Record.com

That's not the idea. Well, not the main idea. Carolina wants to improve its graduation rate, which stands at 69 percent for four years and 84 percent for five years.

Again, those numbers are best in the system. But Carolina compares itself to the top public institutions in the country, such as Virginia, Michigan and Cal-Berkeley. If you want to be one of the elite, you've got to rank high on all your academic measures. And in graduation rates, Carolina trails those three.

One reform under consideration is to raise the bar for Carolina students.

Right now, freshmen only need to earn a 1.5 grade-point average to stay in school. That's halfway between a D and a C. It doesn't sound challenging, but it's dangerous for students to slide by with the minimum because the requirement rises each year.

The cumulative GPA has to be 1.75 after sophomore year and 1.9 after junior year. In order to graduate, a mark of 2.0 is required.

"If you start out with a 1.5, you have to work double time after that," undergraduate admissions director Steve Farmer told me last week. "Some students are digging a deep hole."

Some manage to keep their heads above the ground until their senior year but can't quite reach the required 2.0, he added.

The change would be to demand a 2.0 from the start, hoping students respond to the higher expectations.

Most should manage that with no problem. Ninety percent of freshmen already achieve a C average. But, 6 percent of UNC-CH freshmen from North Carolina public schools advance to their sophomore year with a GPA below 2.0. In raw numbers, that's about 140 students.

What if those freshmen don't clear the higher bar? Won't that cut the graduation rate? Not necessarily, if those students aren't likely to graduate anyway. And if they're not, isn't it preferable to weed them out sooner rather than later?

"There's something to that," Farmer conceded. "We want them to succeed, but is it better for them to spend 3 1/2 years here and leave or a semester and leave?"

Carolina already works hard on freshman retention and plans to work harder, so there's no suspicion that it's aiming to dump slow starters.

At the same time, there's a benefit for the university if it gives an early exit to poor-performing students: transfers to fill the vacancies. More particularly, transfers from out of state who pay more to attend.

UNC can't admit more than 18 percent of its freshman class from out of state, but there's no restriction on transfers. As many as 30 percent come from other states, Farmer said.

The tuition differential is immense: $3,205 this year for North Carolina residents; $17,003 for nonresidents. The gap widens each year.

Just speaking hypothetically, if as many as 120 additional North Carolina freshmen dropped out each year for failing to earn a 2.0, allowing enrollment of that many more transfer students, 30 percent of whom might come from out of state, the university could realize a net gain of 36 out-of-state students and nearly $500,000 in tuition revenue.

More importantly, losing low-performing students sooner rather than later would save taxpayers' money. The state subsidizes the cost of a UNC education for resident students, and those students who stick around for two, three, four or more years without earning a degree don't return a good value for the investment.

Carolina administrators are right to look for ways to improve their graduation rate. Leaders at the 15 other UNC campuses need to do the same. The mission of the university is to educate young people, not entertain them for a few years until they drop out.

Frankly, performances across the board aren't what they should be. Only about one-third of UNC system freshmen finish their first year with a 2.0 GPA and 30 credit hours -- in other words, on a pace to graduate in four years. Too many of them aren't leaving high school with the tools they need to do well in college.

High school preparation is one of the most important predictors of college success, Farmer said. High school students should take the most rigorous courses they can, so the demands of college won't knock them off stride from the start.

A 2.0 GPA requirement for Carolina freshmen, some of our state's brightest young people, is reasonable. But they have to be ready to succeed as soon as they arrive in Chapel Hill. Otherwise, we'll see more of our kids bumped from our best state university, only to have their places taken by students from somewhere else.