The Facts: The Pack Promise scholarship program provides students who have a family income of less than 150 percent of the federal poverty level with 100 percent of demonstrated financial aid. Currently the scholarship program is under review by John Ambrose, dean of Undergraduate Academic Programs, to be cut from the University for budget short falls.
Our Opinions: Dean Ambrose is the same man who approved the cuts from OASIS while promising advising would not be affected yet also approved cutting the pre-law advising services. Now he is looking for other, ineffective ways to lighten student’s academic load. This potential cut goes against Chancellor Woodson’s point on ensuring affordability to the students, and would cause them to otherwise not be able to go to college.
In Woodson’s top YouTube hit on budget cuts this past January, his fifth point explained these cuts would “ensure our continues position as one of the nation’s best values, combining quality and affordability to deliver a very strong return on investment of our students.” By even considering cutting a program allowing students who could not otherwise afford a college education, Ambrose is directly opposing the affordability aspect of Woodson’s point. It also goes against Section 9 of the UNC Constitution: “The General Assembly shall provide that the benefits of The University of North Carolina and other public institutions of higher education, as far as practicable, be extended to the people of the State free of expense.”
We can only assume Ambrose’s statements, pertaining to the cuts, have little credibility. Ambrose ensures us in the article about the Pack Promise scholar program on Thursday that “whatever happens, the students who are already here [and] we have a commitment to [the program and] will honor those commitments.” However, in the March 17 edition of the Technician Ambrose said, “A lot of things the OASIS program has done it will continue to do. It’s just that we’ll reassign the responsibilities.” A week later the pre-law services were cut from OASIS. This does not sound like reassigning responsibilities. Ambrose should do his research before drastically cutting programs, like he has done to the pre-law services.
The Pack Promise program is the epitome of N.C. State’s historical foundation: those who otherwise would not have access to a college education, but deserve and dream of one, are able to achieve that dream. The program includes students enrolled in each of N.C. State’s 10 colleges and participates in over 400 student organizations. By cutting it, Ambrose and Provost Arden will be denying many students a college education and experience and well as denying many organizations the benefit of having these students contribute to them. This would also result in a decrease in overall enrollment, because many of these students will otherwise have no choice but to drop-out of school.
This program does not only provide financial aid to students, but rather a program to be a part of. The program requirements range from participating in various University events to going through an advising process through OASIS, all of which aids in first-year students’ transition to college-life. If these services are not continued, then the result would be a reduction in revenue for the University and the loss of some the brightest students.
Administrators, including Ambrose, should be reevaluating their programs and services for cuts, according to Woodson’s and Arden’s suggested plan last month. They should be looking for programs that will not have such a high impact on students financially, after all that were one of the main points Woodson wished to protect during the realignment process. Unless these administrators wish to break their promise to ensure quality and affordable education to N.C. State’s students, they must look other places to trim off the fat from our budget—which could include their salaries.
