As the Carolina Covenant program at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill prepares to graduate its first class on May 11.

Its seniors had posted a 90.6 percent retention rate by the first semester of this academic year.

The University won't know how many from the first class will have completed their undergraduate degrees in four years until late this summer, when some students have finished summer school and records are complete. But of the first 223 Carolina Covenant Scholars who enrolledas freshmen in fall 2004, (reduced from 224 because of one student's death), 202 were still enrolled or had graduated.

Some have transferred to other schools, and some have taken a break from their studies and may return. With private funds, the University has contracted with RTI International for a thorough analysis of the Covenant. Results are expected next year.

By the start of last semester, the scholars' average grade-point average was 2.92. The mark betters that of 2.85 for students who would have been eligible for the Covenant had it existed when they enrolled in 2003.

The Covenant is now represented in all four classes, with 1,384 Covenant Scholars on campus. Averages for all four classes at the time they first enrolled at Carolina were SAT scores, 1208; grade-point averages, 4.23; from North Carolina, 87 percent; students of color, 61.5 percent; and first-generation college students, 56 percent.

The Covenant offers loan-free financial aid packages to any admitted student whose family income does not exceed 200 percent (150 percent forthe first class enrolled, in 2004) of the poverty level. Now, that 200 percent level is $41,300? for a family of four. The Covenant funds the full financial need of each scholar for four years with a combination of scholarships, grants and work-study jobs.

The Covenant preserves and promotes Carolina's identity as the people's University.

"We think of the Covenant as an ethical and moral commitment, and indeed, we knew when we established it, that it fit our core values as a public university," Moeser said. "It fit our history and tradition of giving back to this state and to the nation."

Before the Covenant, only Princeton University had a no-loans program. The Covenant, announced in 2003, was the first low-income initiative by a public university. It also was the first to add support measures to foster academic success by the scholars. Since then, more than 80 other public and private institutions have adopted programs to make higher education more accessible to students from low- to moderate-income families.

To read more about the Carolina Covenant, click here.