North Carolina’s Governor Takes a Stand for Students

For the past few years, we’ve analyzed the share of community college students, nationally and by state, who lack access to federal student loans because their colleges decided to not make them available. North Carolina has consistently ranked poorly in our analyses. To improve students’ access to this important source of aid, last year the state legislature required all community colleges to participate in the loan program by 2011-12. But this year, the legislature reversed course. It passed a bill (NC House Bill 7) that lets colleges opt out of the new requirement, which has not yet gone into effect.

Earlier today, North Carolina Governor Beverly Perdue took a historic step towards ensuring access to aid for the state’s community college students by vetoing House Bill 7. This issue is of critical importance in the state right now. With more students than ever seeking education and training at community colleges, North Carolina now ranks absolute last in the share of students with loan access in 2010-11 (as detailed in our new analysis to be released this month). While we don’t usually share such a major finding in advance, we wanted to call attention to the significance of Governor Perdue’s decision today.

You can read our letter to Governor Perdue asking her to consider a veto here, and our thank you letter to the Governor here.

– Debbie Cochrane Program Director