Simply, when people want to try to insult us, they resort to that totally erroneous trope of us being a commuter school. They donāt care about FACTS. The just want to INSULT us in a totally, ignorant and JUVENILE way. Theyāre pathetic.
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I agree with the last post. I think this is what it is all about. Some are idiots that do no research. And other are simply wanting to put down their rival. But I do not understand Charlotte students that have no clue and think they are attending a commuter school.
I think the urban environment & location are also factors. Compare our campus to ECU:
Charlotte - in a major city, near two major interstates, has light rail ON CAMPUS and is surrounded by trees so that from the outside, itās hard to gauge the number of buildings & scale of the campus.
ECU - located in a much smaller city where the campus is much larger percentage of the city itself, located off of 587 which is a spur line from I95 and in a much flatter part of the state which makes their buildings & stadium much more visible from off campus.
Yes, the commuter school trope is old and dated, but I have always thought that our location (plus the lack of a traditional college street / downtown environment) helps give off that impression. Itās wrong and has been wrong for a while.
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Commuter School is now synonymous with a school thatās near a city.
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You can look at it another way, Charlotte residents at least want to attend their university whereas who in the hell that live around ECU wants to go there! 
clt chose Charlotte because it is located in a major city. more opportunities for internships and professional summer jobs.
you can go to appy or ecu, and intern at the 2 story wendys or sup dogs
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The āCommuterā status is something that was old and overplayed a very long time ago. When people try to insult us in that way, I just simply ignore them. Nothing you will ever say, since facts no longer matter, that will change their mind. Jealousy comes in all forms, including berating, so I simply choose not to give them the oxygen they so need to inflate their ego. I donāt give a damn if 99% of our students commuted. We are still a brick and mortal top university in both NC and rising quickly in the US with over 30K students that actual have to attend classes to pass.
Go CHARLOTTE!!!
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I lived one year on campus and 4 years in colville. If I was a student now I would be living down south end and taking the light rail in.
My point is being in a big urban city, as scollie says, opens a ton of options for students. Close to campus, NoDa, SouthEnd - thats the beauty. Plus a large metro area where some students may be doing the financially smart thing by living at home.
Also when someone says commuter mention that high % around campus that NA mentioned but I always come back with why do you hate options? Not everyone wants to live on campus or can. Not everyone wants a little college town experience. One of the amazing things about the UNC system is whatever experience you want - you can get.
Also back in the day the commuter lounge couches in Cone were amazing afternoon nap places.
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I graduated 18 years ago, and we werenāt a commuter school way back then. There were about 16,000 kids that lived on campus or within a mile of campus way back then. Weāve gotten even better about it with more on campus and campus-adjacent housing.
Hereās why I believe the perception persists.
- Sticky perceptions. It takes a long time for a perception of something to change when it is held by people who are not in the know about it. This definitely applies to academics at Charlotte across the board.
- We still have a large draw of people who live in the regional area. That means a lot of people who may live nearby still go home on the weekends. That means that while they may be walking to campus M-F, a large number of students still arenāt around on the weekend.
- We donāt have a lot of weekend activities. Campus life is pretty dead on the weekends for a university this size. Itās also incredibly frustrating that lots of facilities, including dining facilities, are closed on the weekends. Much more than is the case at say, NC State. This may be a chicken and the egg situation with number 2 above, because there arenāt as many people on campus, which leads me to my final pointā¦
- We donāt require freshmen to live on campus and we allow parking permits to all students. This is largely because a part of our mission is to be accessible to students from the Charlotte region, including first generation college students. That means we have resisted requiring freshmen to live on campus and preventing people from having easy access to cars to drive home on the weekend like they might at other schools. It really prevents us from having that large college campus feel on the weekend where people are part of the community.
While Iāve fought back on the commuter school perception for twenty years, the truth is, a lot of kids still go home on the weekends. We need to fix that. Campus needs to be a destination seven days a week with the exception of fall, winter, spring, and summer breaks. I absolutely think we can and should do it, but it hasnāt been a priority for the reasons above.
It hurts school spirit, it hurts alumni engagement, and it hurts the perception of the university. So there you have it.
That is changing for 2025.
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Which part? Both? Link? Good news.
clt says we have more students from wake county than mecklenburg
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Run49er thanks for adding to my post.
Hopefully, the change in 2025 will have a positive impact.
Also, I have been to NC State campus. They seem to have a lot of land that is undeveloped. Univ of Charlotte years ago used to speak of 1,000 acres owned by the school. Does anyone know how much of this acreage is still available? Is there additional land in the vicinity that could be bought by the university fur continued expansion if needed? I would think that the housing development near mallard creek could be purchased if needed. This would give the university all of the land over to US29 from mallard creek to NC49. I am interested in what you guys think about this subject.
Itās a great first step and Iām really happy to see it.
The automatic exemption for all residents of adjacent counties makes it a bit less significant. I wish that was an opt in exemption by request instead of automatic, but thereās no doubt that itās a step in the right direction.
Part of me agrees with you but I also think with the costs of college escalating at such a high rate staying at home if you are in the region is not only an ok thing - its a smart thing and something that we will use to continue to keep many students local which could explain the automatic opt in.
Youād almost fall asleep just walking in there because they kept it so dark. And most of those couches couldāve used a deep steam cleaning.
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Since the new Master Plan hasnāt been released yet, weāll have to go on what we know from the 2010 plan. Thatās assuming no new acquisitions or divestments since 2010:
Obviously, some of this has already been developed by the University.
They can easily (but not cheaply) expand the school by building up instead of out.
If I ignore athletic needs.
The biggest need we have IMHO is a replacement for the cone center. Itās very long in the tooth.
clt says replace friday and mceneriy