Time to pay up: as part of this month's focus on higher education, guest columnist Paul Fulton explains his passion for improving North Carolina's colleges and universities.

• Author: Fulton, Paul
• Position: UP FRONT

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Higher education has always distinguished North Carolina from other states. The University of North

Carolina System is highly regarded across the nation and around the globe--it has set this state apart. We need to nurture it, or watch it wither.

I agree with my friend Fred Eshelman, a pharmaceutical executive in Wilmington and a former UNC System board member. It's time to stop the bleeding," he said when leaving the board. "You can say whatever you want to about the university system, [that] there's waste and you don't like their politics. It doesn't change the fact that, in my view, it's the biggest economic engine we have in this state."

We are one of three states required constitutionally to provide children with a college education for as close to free as possible. Yet this system that has helped build our state is at risk: Over five years, starting in 2007-08, state support per student fell by $2,516, while tuition and fees went up by an average of $699.

In March, North Carolina voters reaffirmed their support for higher education with a resounding vote to invest $1.3 billion in capital spending at universities and community colleges across the state.

Now we need to invest in human capital as well. University faculty have seen one raise from the legislature in seven years. From 2012-14, 76% of faculty members at public universities who received offers from other institutions accepted the bids. Of the instructors who left, 93 took a total of $91 million in grant money. This has sapped talent at our public...