North Carolina’s Great Equalizer
Education is a great equalizer. It prepares individuals to seize professional opportunities. It inspires entrepreneurs to create their own. Thanks to a state constitutional mandate to support affordable schools and universities, North Carolinians have greater access to educational pathways that lead to more prosperous and more stimulating lives. View the UNC System timeline.
Impact Beyond the Classroom
The measure of the University’s impact isn’t limited to the 50,000-plus students who graduate from the institutions of the UNC System every year. Even those North Carolinians who never enroll in a university class reap the benefits of higher education.
The UNC System produces the talent that businesses need to stay competitive in a global economy. The UNC System prepares the doctors and nurses who keep our communities healthy and the teachers who keep our communities educated. Our institutions provide the infrastructure and support for vital research and development, which has discovered life-saving pharmaceuticals and medical procedures, attracted cutting edge industries to North Carolina, and helped long-established firms remain viable in a changing landscape.
Our community engagement efforts make North Carolina’s cities, towns, and crossroads more resilient and more vibrant. Grant money, vendor contracts, and university events bring in billions of dollars annually to North Carolina’s economy.
Benefiting All 100 Counties
This work doesn’t unfold at just one institution. The UNC System comprises 16 universities, one residential high school, and several affiliates. Each strengthens North Carolina in its own remarkable way. Taken together, the collective UNC System has an extraordinary impact across the state, improving lives from Murphy’s shady hollows to Manteo’s sandy shores.
The UNC System is a model for public higher education around the world. For two centuries, it has made North Carolina’s economy stronger, its people more knowledgeable, and its culture richer.