About Carolina
The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, the nation’s first public university, is at the heart of what’s next, preparing a diverse student body to become creators, explorers, innovators and leaders in North Carolina and beyond.
Carolina’s innovative teaching, campus-wide spirit of inquiry and dedication to public service continue a legacy that began when the University was chartered in 1789.
In Chapel Hill, students develop a voice for critical thought and the courage to guide change. They connect to the future they are already shaping and prepare with one another to solve the grand challenges of our time.
Carolina is passionately public and among the few flagship campuses to practice need-blind admissions and provide low-debt, full-need student aid. Our commitment to access and affordability includes providing opportunities such as the Carolina Covenant, a ground-breaking program for academically qualified low-income students that offers a debt-free path to graduation.
Our research, over a billion-dollar enterprise, has quadrupled over the past 15-plus years, firmly establishing Carolina as one of America’s top-ranked research institutions. Our world-class faculty experts continue to lead critical research to discover treatments and solutions for COVID-19, but also to develop drugs and therapeutics for future viral outbreaks.
Through the Carolina Across 100 initiative, UNC-Chapel Hill is enhancing its support to communities across the state. The five-year initiative identifies common themes and uses interdisciplinary teams to partner with community leaders in creating solutions to pressing challenges.
Such examples of progress come as we aspire to follow Carolina Next: Innovations for Public Good, a strategic plan developed with broad input from the campus community that will guide us on our journey to become the leading global public research university.
Crucial to Carolina’s future success is the ability to bring together a student body marked by diversity along many dimensions and to prepare our students to become informed citizens and effective leaders. A diverse student body helps foster vibrant environments within classrooms and residence halls, on performing arts stages and athletic fields and in the community. Diversity enables the exchange of ideas and the pursuit of solutions from many different perspectives and grounded in many different life experiences.
Experience and evidence show our differences strengthen educational programs, enhance the development of our students and enable us to achieve our mission as a public university that strives for excellence in teaching, learning, discovering and serving the people of North Carolina and beyond.
Incoming students consistently say diversity matters to them. For the 2022 entering class:
- 93 percent said they hope to receive, during their time at Carolina, the experience of engaging with a broad range of ideas and perspectives that differ from their own.
- 94 percent said they want their understanding to be broadened and refined through discussion with classmates and professors who differ from themselves.
- 94 percent said they want to work with classmates who have different perspectives and approaches to solving problems.
- 95 percent said they want to get better at leading, serving, and working with people from different backgrounds.
- 94 percent said they want to deepen their respect and empathy for other people.