The UNC Board of Governors voted April 15 to recommend delaying a controversial new college admissions program until 2018.

The Guaranteed Admission Program, or NCGAP, will tighten admissions requirements at UNC System schools and direct more students into community colleges. The program is intended for students with the lowest admission criteria to first go to community college, after which they would automatically be accepted into a four year school in the UNC system.

Any change to the program would have to be passed by the General Assembly. Since NCGAP is already law, if it is not changed during the upcoming legislative session, it will go into effect in 2017.

But according to a new report, the program could disproportionately affect minority, rural and low-income students. The report said, however, it will likely lower cost for students and the state.

The program is designed to prevent students who don’t graduate from a four year school from accruing debt, which board member Champ Mitchell said is an important issue.

“The legislature was trying to address a very real problem. The problem of graduation rates that aren’t high enough,” said Mitchell, “which means we are putting people into school and letting them borrow money and then come out with a degree and not a good way to repay it.”

There are two current possibilities for implementing NCGAP.

One would change the minimum high school GPA for admission to the UNC System from a 2.5 to a 2.7.

The other possibility would have each UNC system school reduce the number of students they admit by 2.5%.

Several members of the board voted against delaying the program, including board member Thom Goolsby. He said NCGAP could help improve the community college system.

“They get into the guaranteed acceptance program, they take the courses, they get the two years in community college and they transfer. I think most of the people in the state think that’s the way the community college system works right now, and apparently it doesn’t, that’s a big problem,” said Goolsby.

Board member Marty Kotis was concerned there are not enough resources dedicated to the program.

“So one of the big problems that I have is that we are not identifying the resources we need to implement NCGAP in our budget and I think that’s a big mistake,” said Kotis. “I think that we need to provide for those resources in our budget and show the legislature what we need in order to accomplish the existing law.”

The Board of Governors recognizes that failure rates and affordability are big issues for the UNC System, but differences remain on if NCGAP in its current form is the best solution.

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