My father had a two year technical degree from a community college and my mother had a legal secretarial degree from a private school. I am the oldest of six children and our age spread is over 10 years. My parents chose to send us to Roman Catholic schools. My father worked for IBM so we moved to Raleigh as a part of the IBM move into the Research Triangle in 1965. There was never any doubt in their minds and therefore in my siblings and my mind that we would all go to 4-year institutions. Thank God for the in-state tuition.
I asked my Dad about going to Duke but was told that I would have to pay for anything more than in-state tuition or get scholarships. Based on my father's salary, that was very little ability to demonstrate need.
Every year of my undergraduate career at UNC, my dad transferred sufficient IBM stock to cover my tuition and fees, and some of the room and board costs. I had to work during the semester to have spending money. I actually worked no less than 2 jobs every summer to cover the additional costs.
Even though I had attended for all but one year private schools with under 500 total students, I found UNC not to be overwhelming. First, my parents, primarily my mother, made sure that we knew how to study, how to delegate our time and do such mundane things such as cook, wash laundry and clean our rooms.
Thanks to the freshmen seminars, I had a face-to-face experience with a fully tenured professor that first semester. Frankly, if it had not been for his suggestion at our closing meeting to discuss the seminar and how it could be improved, I probably would have transferred to NC State to the Design School. Even in the large lecture classes like Econ 31, I was able to meet and discuss with the professor things related to the class.
Socially, I lived at Stacy Dorm in the Lower Quad across from the Forest Theatre. We had 120 guys living in the dorm with no kitchen so I abused the electrical system to cook in my room. As there were 5 boys in my family that shared one bathroom and only two bedrooms, being in a triple as I did in the first semester was not distasteful. I liked that all levels were living in the dorm so you could learn how to navigate "Drop Add" with upper classmen's assistance. Knowing which professors to avoid and which classes to avoid was helpful in developing my Interdisciplinary Studies program in Urban Studies. It must of worked as I have been a real estate agent or city planner for my entire career.
I am happy to say that a total of 4 children from my immediate family graduated from UNC and two of us have Masters from UNC. There was a period of over 10 years where a Steigerwald worked in the Student Union with only one missing year.
Overall, I made life long friends from my time at UNC and I certainly got the best value for my education dollar that I could get. I would not trade that experience for any other alternative. I recently participated in a GAA effort to convince accepted seniors to commit to attend UNC in Charlotte. I will do so every year if asked because I think it is important to give time and not just money to support an institution that did so much to help me have a happy and productive life.