UNC Alumni Rank Eighth in Peace Corps Service

Carolina has moved up three spots among large schools to eighth on an annual ranking of universities with alumni serving in the Peace Corps.

The University currently has 77 volunteers working for the corps. The University of Washington leads with 110 current volunteers. Since the corps’ inception, 966 UNC alumni have joined the ranks, making it the all-time No. 25 producer of volunteers.

In the category of large schools – those with more than 15,000 undergraduates – the University of Wisconsin-Madison is still a close second, followed by the University of Colorado-Boulder.

Carolina ranks 24th among schools with graduate school alumni serving, with seven volunteers.

The University of California-Berkeley has produced the most Peace Corps volunteers since 1961 with 3,282. This year, Colorado-Boulder became only the sixth school to surpass the 2,000-volunteer mark.

Although it is not a requirement for service, the majority of volunteers who have served in the Peace Corps over the past 45 years have been college graduates. Currently, 93 percent of volunteers have at least an undergraduate degree, with 12 percent of those also having a graduate level degree.