225 years of Tar Heels: Shirley Ort
By the time Shirley Ort left the post of director of the Office of Scholarships and Student Aid, the University’s aid budget had grown to $425 million per year.
Editor’s note: In honor of the University’s 225th anniversary, we will be sharing profiles throughout the academic year of some of the many Tar Heels who have left their heelprint on the campus, their communities, the state, the nation and the world.
For 15 years, the Carolina Covenant has provided low-income students the opportunity to graduate from Carolina debt-free.
The Tar Heel behind that program is Shirley Ort, who served as the director of the Office of Scholarships and Student Aid for 19 years before she retired in 2016.
“I am very pleased with what I have accomplished here, and I think it has taken root,” Ort said in a 2016 interview. “The University owns the Covenant. It is not like any other financial program that could be done away with because there isn’t enough money there. It is part of the soul and fabric of what’s here. I don’t know how it will go on, but it will go on, and it will go on well.”
Ort received her undergraduate degree from Spring Arbor College in Michigan, a master’s degree in medieval history from Western Michigan University and a law degree from Seattle University School of Law.
She came to Carolina in 1997 from the Higher Education Coordinating Board in Olympia, Washington, where she had been the deputy director for student financial aid. She had been recruited by her former mentor and boss, Elson Floyd, who served as the executive vice chancellor at the time. He had been concerned that increasing tuition could put college out of reach for low- to middle-income families.
Ort implemented a plan at Carolina that was based on a Washington state statute that allowed a percentage of new tuition revenue to be set aside for needy parents. Today, private fundraising also helps fund the program.
Covenant Scholars receive a combination of grants, scholarships and/or work-study to meet 100 percent of their financial need, which means the difference between the amount it costs to attend Carolina for an academic year and the amount the family is expected to pay.
By the time Ort left her post as director of the Office of Scholarships and Student Aid, the University’s aid budget had grown to $425 million per year.
