For more than 200 years, the state of North Carolina has maintained a strong commitment to the University North Carolina creating, perhaps, the finest public university in the nation. The high quality of the University has become a driver for the state's strong economy, and UNC's reputation for excellence and its tradition of pride have helped make North Carolina a magnet for growth and development.
Just as the University has fueled the state's current prosperity, the future of North Carolina depends on UNC's ability to consistently spawn innovation, enrich the lives of individuals and communities, and produce much of the state's intellectual capital. In order to maintain these objectives, the University--with the help of countless legislative and government officials, alumni, and supporters--is working to develop a solution to the mounting capital needs found throughout UNC's 16 campuses.
In April 1999 the UNC Board of Governors approved Building for the New Millennium, the report--called for by 1997 and 1998 legislative special provisions--emerging from the most exhaustive higher education facilities study ever done in the nation. Consultant Eva Klein & Associates documented the relative equity and adequacy of capital facilities on the 16 UNC campuses and included a ten-year capital spending plan for the University.
The report documented woefully outmoded buildings, mounting deferred maintenance, and a looming shortage of critical science, technology, and study facilities. The total cost of the required capital investment is estimated to be $6.9 billion over 10 years. The University is looking to the General Assembly to provide funding for approximately 60 percent of this amount--the remaining 40 percent to be campus-generated funds.
As UNC is expected to enroll 48,000 additional students over the next decade, and as nearly 800 UNC buildings need significant repairs or modernization, it is critical that the University and community college facility needs be met as soon as possible. For without timely appropriations, UNC risks losing its reputation for excellence in teaching and research which two centuries of taxpayers, students, and University supporters have worked so hard to achieve.
