Former UNC system president Tom Ross was given the Duke Energy Citizenship & Service Award by the Chapel Hill-Carrboro Chamber of Commerce during its Annual Meeting on Tuesday.

As the event’s keynote speaker, Ross delivered a speech on the value of higher education.

“Today it’s my fear that colleges and universities in this country are considered increasingly as nothing more than factories that must demonstrate an immediate return on investment,” he said. “We hear constantly, calls to drive out cost and to produce more product for less cost. There’s far less talk about academic quality and excellence.”

He said if nothing else, North Carolinians should care about higher education because of the economic benefits it brings to the state. Ross said the 9.3 billion dollar budget makes the university system the 11th largest industry in the state.

“In 2013, the UNC System creates 27.9 billion dollars of added economic value to the North Carolina economy,” he said. “It has the equivalent impact of creating more than 426,000 jobs.”

Ross said he was concerned with what he called the divestment in education and said this has led to other nations and other states catching up to the UNC system.

“We now spend two percent more on higher education in real dollars than we did 25 years ago,” he said. “During that same time period our enrollment has grown 60 percent. We’re spending more than 30 percent less per student today than we did 25 years ago in this country.”

Ross ended his speech by calling on residents of North Carolina to make their voices heard and tell their representatives that they want to increase funding for the system.

He also encouraged people to vote in favor of the Connect NC Bond, which will invest nearly half of the two billion dollars raised in the UNC System.

“So if I’m right, we must reverse the 25 year trend and begin investing again in our public universities,” he said.

Tom Ross’ Speech at Chamber Annual Meeting 1.26.16