North Carolina Universities

North Carolina is also known for its educational institutions. It is home to some of United States’ most prestigious public and private universities. Some of these universities will be tackled in this article.

The University of North Carolina is the first public university in the United States, opened in 1795 in Chapel Hill. The university system is now composed of seventeen campuses: Appalachian State University (Watauga County), East Carolina University (Pitt), Elizabeth City State University (Pasquotank), Fayetteville State University (Cumberland), North Carolina Central University (Durham), North Carolina School of the Arts (Forsyth), North Carolina School of Science and Mathematics (Durham), North Carolina State University (Wake), University of North Carolina at Asheville (Buncombe), University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill (Orange), University of North Carolina at Charlotte (Mecklenburg), University of North Carolina at Greensboro (Guilford), University of North Carolina at Pembroke (Robeson), University of North Carolina at Wilmington (Hanover), Western Carolina University (Jackson) and Winston-Salem State University (Forsyth).

This system offers courses in medicine, nursing, dentistry, pharmacy, veterinary, law, engineering, performing arts and a lot more. The system has a total enrollment of 183,000 and it is offering 75% of all bachelor degrees in North Carolina. Aside from being one with the original public ivy, the Chapel Hill campus is consistently ranked high among the most prestigious universities in the country and has been hailed alongside the North Carolina State University in Raleigh and Duke University in Durham as the members of the Research Triangle.   Located in Durham is Duke University, a private research university founded by Methodists and Quakers in the present day town of Trinity in 1838 before it was move to Durham in 1892.

The university is well-known not only for its high-standard educational offerings, consistently staying as one of the country's top ten but also for its Gothic architecture as magnified by its three campuses: East Campus, West (Main) Campus and the Medical Center. It owns 220 buildings on 8,611 acres of land. It offers more than eighty major courses which include Philosophy, Music, Engineering, Linguistics, Cultural Anthropology, International Comparative Studies and more.

Gardener-Wenb University is a private university located in Boiling Springs, North Carolina, with 16 satellite campuses scattered in the state and offering associate, bachelor's, master's and doctoral degrees. It is affiliated with the Baptist State Convention of North Carolina. Some of the degree courses offered in the university are the following: Accounting, Communication Studies, Theater Arts, Music, Composition, Mathematics, Business, Nursing, Natural Sciences and more. The university is home to numerous clubs, organizations, and honors societies and most of the students are living in in-campus dormitories.

Other institutions of higher learning in North Carolina are Campbell University, High Point University, Methodist University, Wingate University, Queen's University, Pfeiffer University and Shaw University.