Access and Affordability
We proudly call our first-generation college students “Carolina Firsts.” Making up nearly 20% of our undergraduate population, Carolina Firsts are integral to our campus culture, contributing greatly to our diversity and intellectual life.
Carolina is committed to access for all, providing life-changing opportunities such as the Carolina Covenant, a pioneering initiative that promises a debt-free education to qualified low-income students launched in 2004. Now, over 700 students are designated as Covenant Scholars each year. More than half are both students of color and the first in their immediate families to go to college. Scholars must first qualify through the University’s need-blind admissions process before becoming eligible.
We proudly call our first-generation college students “Carolina Firsts.” Making up nearly 20% of our undergraduate population, Carolina Firsts are integral to our campus culture, contributing greatly to our diversity and intellectual life.
With support from the Jack Kent Cooke Foundation, UNC-Chapel Hill created the Carolina Student Transfer Excellence Program (C-STEP), which enables more community college students to transfer to and graduate from UNC-Chapel Hill, as well as the Carolina College Advising Corps, which places recent Carolina graduates as admissions and financial-aid advisers in underserved high schools statewide.
In 2019, UNC-Chapel Hill expanded C-STEP to include two new community colleges and a new initiative to help prepare those students for jobs in STEM (science, technology, engineering and mathematics) fields. The expansion, which brings the total number of community colleges served to 13, was made possible by a grant from the North Carolina GlaxoSmithKline Foundation.
