The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill announced that it has decided to cover tuition and fees for students from North Carolina who come from families with household incomes of $80,000 or less.
In the announcement, the University's Chancellor Kevin Guskiewicz addressed students at the university and his state remarking on the recent U.S. Supreme Court decision to strike race as a possible factor for university admissions.
The University of North Carolina says they will begin to offer the tuition and fees compensation for qualifying students enrolling for the 2024 class. The idea is a broadening of other programsoffered in the state, the chancellor said.
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"We will follow the Supreme Court’s decision in all respects," Chancellor Guskiewicz wrote.
Guskiewicz said the university will "comply" with the high court's ruling that an applicant's race cannot be used as "race for race's sake," referring to the opinion of justices written in the ruling.
In the written opinion of the Supreme Court published on its website the ruling reads after that line, referring to another institution, "Harvard's admissions process rests on the pernicious stereotype that 'a black student can usually bring something that a white person cannot offer.'"
The university said the high court decision would not affect fundamental values at the university, and Guskiewicz affirmed an obligation for the institution to work to help all students who matriculate at the public institute of higher education to thrive.
In late June Harvard responded to the high court's ruling, saying the court's opinion will change how the school implements "the educational benefits of diversity."
Harvard's President-elect Claudine Gay said in a video message that the Ivy League university would remain committed to its diversity goals.
"For almost a decade, Harvard has vigorously defended an admissions system that, as two federal courts ruled, fully complied with longstanding precedent,"a message signed by university leadership including President Lawrence S. Bacow, read.
Founded in 1636, Harvard University is the oldest higher education institution in the United States, and has been called one of the most selective of all of the Ivy League colleges.
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