Tutoring Bill

Tutoring Bill

Senate Majority Leader Tony Rand says he doesn't plan to pursue this session legislation that would require college students to spend 20 hours a semester tutoring or mentoring public school students. College officials voiced a lot of concern about the measure, said Rand. He said he plans to rework the bill to be more "volunteer oriented" and not something that creates a new bureaucracy for volunteerism. "It would require a great deal of planning," said Rand, D-Cumberland.
Rand filed his bill after two college students were recently killed by gunfire in the Triangle: UNC-Chapel Hill student body president Eve Carson and Duke University graduate student Abhijit Mahato. The community service program would be named after them. It would have required most students entering UNC system schools and private colleges in the fall to begin volunteering. Private colleges would have had to participate or lose out on two state financial aid programs. By Jan. 1, 2012, all bachelor's degree recipients would have had to have completed the community service requirement. (THE NEWS & OBSERVER, 6/24/08).