CHAPEL HILL (January 20, 2022) – With $97 million from a new state budget, Project Kitty Hawk – the UNC System’s online learning platform – is rapidly taking shape.

And it aims to make it easier for adult learners to earn a degree.

With the population of traditional college-age students projected to level off over the decade due to birth rates that declined during the Great Recession, Project Kitty Hawk will target adult North Carolinians who didn’t finish college on the usual high-school-to-college path.

UNC System President Peter Hans told the UNC Board of Governors’ Strategic Initiatives Committee Wednesday that there are 1 million North Carolinians with some college, but no degree, and many want to finish that degree.

But they’re a different population than fresh-out-of-high-school students. They have jobs – sometimes to pay down debt from that partial college experience. They have kids that need to be put to bed. They tend to prefer online classes that offer flexibility about when to register and when to do coursework.

Nearly as many North Carolinians attend online out-of-state universities such as Liberty, Strayer, Southern New Hampshire and the University of Phoenix (63,000) as attend in-state universities online (65,000), Andrew Kelly, Senior Vice President for Strategy and Policy, told the committee Wednesday.

But UNC System officials think they can do more to compete with out-of-state providers. 

Online higher-education providers include both good and bad actors, said Hans – some non-profit and some for-profit. The bad actors “typically target veterans and others that I think we can serve more efficiently,” he said.

Universities often partner with Online Program Managers (OPMs) that provide the platform for students to take classes online. The OPMs typically receive about 2/3 of the tuition revenue, Hans said, but by forming Project Kitty Hawk as a nonprofit organization to host the UNC System platform, officials hope to reverse that so the universities receive 2/3 of the revenue. 

“We felt like this was most advantageous to our universities,” Hans said. Tuition rates will be negotiated between each participating institution and Project Kitty Hawk.

Many OPMs tend to focus on high-dollar graduate programs with high tuition, Hans said, but Project Kitty Hawk will focus more on undergraduates.

“Great. But we need school teachers,” he said. “We need nurses.”

The Project Kitty Hawk effort could help the state meet its ambitious attainment goal of 2 million North Carolinians ages 25-44 with a degree or high-quality credential by 2030, Hans said.

“There are roughly a million North Carolinians with some college, no degree,” he said. “I think we can do a lot more toward meeting that 2 million with a credential by 2030 goal.”

Kelly noted that many UNC System institutions already have established, well-regarded online offerings. The MBA@UNC online offering from the Kenan-Flagler Business School at UNC-Chapel Hill, for example, has been rated No. 1 in the country in its field. Such programs won’t be forced to join Project Kitty Hawk.

“This is not obligatory,” Kelly said. “Institutions are not going to be required to partner with Project Kitty Hawk.”

Experts at Project Kitty Hawk will help participating institutions design and implement online programs via Kitty Hawk’s platform, he said.

The online offerings will be expected to be self-supporting by the time the federal recovery funds used to launch the project expire in four years, Kelly said. The online programs will not be included in the UNC System’s formula for enrollment-growth funds from the state.

Project Kitty Hawk’s board will decide on a headquarters location that could itself be an economic driver for a region, he said, and it will be able to place call centers in rural locations.

The full Board of Governors voted today to name the initial nine members of Project Kitty Hawk’s board:

• UNC System President Peter Hans.
• Board of Governors Chair Randy Ramsey. The UNC System President and Board of Governors chair will be ex officio voting members.
• Three UNC System chancellors: Nancy Cable of UNC Asheville; Frank Gilliam, Jr. of UNC Greensboro; and Philip Rogers of East Carolina University.

And four members with experience in higher education and/or business management:

• Ray Carey, CEO of Optimere, a leading digital communications compliance platform.
• Susan Cates, Managing Partner, Leeds Illuminate, a growth equity fund that invests in education and workforce development. Cates was the founding executive director of MBA@UNC and chief operating officer at 2U, an Online Program Manager.
• John Comly, CEO, American Safety Holding Corp., which develops and delivers online training for adult learners.
• And Courtney Crowder, Raleigh Managing Director, APCO Worldwide, the largest independently owned PR firm in the country.

Board of Governors member Leo Daughtry said he considers the board members qualified. But Daughtry said even he, as a Board of Governors member, had trouble learning about the selection process. The University System needs to be more transparent with such processes, he said.

Along similar lines, Board of Governors member Art Pope said that adding expertise from the private sector invites potential conflicts of interest.

Because they will be awarding contracts worth tens of millions of dollars and setting tuition for UNC programs, Pope said members of the Kitty Hawk board should be subject to the same ethics laws – including required statements of economic interest – and public meetings and records laws as members of the Board of Governors are. Hans pledged to work toward that as a member of the Kitty Hawk board.

HANS AND THE SYSTEM OFFICE staff also announced plans to “refresh” the UNC System’s strategic plan this spring. 

The System met many of its goals early under the current plan, Higher Expectations, said Hans – particularly on affordability, graduation rates and student success. The plan is now in its fifth and final year.

“We’re continuing to deliver on the core promises of the university,” he said. “Holding tuition flat for the past five years has saved millions for North Carolina families.”

“Enrollment is up. Graduation is up. Retention is up. Research is up,” Hans said. “Tuition is flat.”

Degree completions by students from low-income families are up 10.8% since 2016-17, and completions by students from rural counties are up 8.5%.¹

“Our approach is working,” said Ramsey. “We don’t need to overhaul the strategic plan.”

But system officials do want to update metrics in the plan to include on-time graduation, student debt, post-graduation outcomes, student mental health, and increased access for adult learners and veterans. 

System officials plan to hold town hall meetings across the system in January and February, develop updated trends and metrics in March and present the new plan to the board in May.

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¹ https://www.northcarolina.edu/apps/bog/doc.php?id=66506&code=bog, p. 35.