Shannon Watkins of the Martin Center focuses her latest column on private higher education in North Carolina.

Private colleges and universities face challenges distinct from their public counterparts. For one, unlike public institutions, they are not the recipients of generous state funding. Instead, they rely heavily on revenue generated from tuition—as well as on the generous support of donors.

Such a reliance on tuition revenue puts private institutions in a vulnerable position—especially in the face of national declines in enrollment where private institutions are being hit the hardest: only about 26 percent of all undergraduates attend private colleges and universities, down from 35 percent in 1965. While private institutions with large endowments and student bodies are significantly less at risk of having their doors shuttered, other smaller colleges may be in a more precarious situation.

Nevertheless, North Carolina’s leaders in private higher education remain optimistic. One of those leaders is Hope Williams, president of North Carolina Independent Colleges and Universities (NCICU)—an organization that represents and advocates for the state’s 36 private non-profit colleges and universities. …

… What is the biggest challenge for private independent colleges?

I think the biggest challenge for private higher education, may be similar to that of public higher education, and that is affordability. The cost of higher education is certainly in the news a lot, and one of the challenges is that so much of the cost of higher education is in personnel—such as faculty and staff. That’s a major cost that does continue to rise.

But, another challenge is that we educate students from all socioeconomic strata. In fact, about half of our North Carolina students are Pell Grant eligible, which means they can receive federal funding. They generally would also receive the state grant and other types of financial aid. But, because our colleges and universities are private institutions, we don’t receive the direct funding from the state that public institutions do. That means our colleges and universities have to generate a similar amount of funds without the state’s assistance.