UNC System report highlights degree shortages in key industries, including nursing
RALEIGH, N.C. (WTVD) -- While enrollment across the University of North Carolina System remains strong, a new report shows persistent gaps in key academic fields that are critical to meeting the state's workforce needs.
"Our college enrollment continues to go up year over year. Students are still finding a value-based education in the UNC system. I think what we're actually seeing is our population boom, and we're also seeing a big retirement wave that we need to prepare for," said Mary Varghese, Vice President of Strategic Initiatives for the UNC System.
Gaps in fields such as engineering, education, and nursing - sectors that have wide-ranging effects on North Carolina's economy and public services - are drawing considerable attention.
"We as a university system needed to grow about an additional five to 10,000 degrees at the bachelor's level and above just to keep up with state workforce needs, and a lot of that is in critical occupations," Varghese said.
The report noted significant gaps between demand and degree completions across the board in engineering, with electrical engineering, mechanical engineering, civil engineering and chemical engineering seeing significant differences.
"One of the common questions we keep getting from new employers who want to come to the state is asking about our engineering pipeline, and it's across programs," Varghese said.
The education sector is also facing challenges. Nationally, North Carolina ranks 43rd in average public school teacher pay, trailing neighboring states.
"The problem is that students are just choosing not to go into teaching," said Keith Poston, President of WakeEd Partnership. "And frankly, what we've been doing here in this state for the last 15 years, it's no surprise."
Poston said students are increasingly choosing other career paths, not because of a lack of preparation, but because of the profession's financial realities.
"We need to make teaching profession more attractive. I mean, students are smart. College has gotten more expensive. They're looking at teaching, or like well, I can make much more in another profession with a college degree than teaching itself," Poston said.
Though he cited the positive effects of the NC Teaching Fellows Program, ultimately, he said he believes more needs to be done to support educators.
"Until we at the bare minimum pass the state budget, pay teachers a wage that is commensurate with the profession that they are and the benefit that they provided to society, we're not going to get ahead of this," Poston said.
Varghese pointed to potential strategies to help reverse those trends, including targeted financial incentives.
"We need to think as a university, what can we do to address some of those teacher shortages, whether that be forgivable loans to students or additional financial aid to keep them in their education programs," she said.
Workforce gaps are also affecting health care, particularly nursing. Bonnie Meadows, president of the North Carolina Nurses Association, said a shortage of nursing faculty is limiting how many qualified students can be trained.
"One of the overall issues that we have been trying to address and working with others to address is the reduction in nursing faculty," Meadows said.
She noted that funding from the General Assembly has helped address faculty limitations
"When a nurse decides to go and teach full-time, and you've left a hospital system, you are also deciding to take a significant pay decrease. These universities have also recognized that there is that decrease, that shift that a nurse will have to make, so the funding addresses both increasing in positions and being able to help with salaries," said Meadows.
"We're finally being able to see and accept more students into those programs, so that's a win-win for our students but also for our state workforce needs," added Varghese.
The push for more nurses is especially critical as the state's population ages, with the Department of Commerce projecting the number of residents age 85 and older will more than double by 2042.
"It definitely has an economic effect, and it has an effect on the profession if we're not able to close that gap. On top of that gap, we also have our own nurses who are in that baby boomer generation who are also wanting to retire, so that really puts the urgency on the need to bring in more nurses into the nursing profession," said Meadows.
She stressed the issue is not a lack of interest from students.
"You can ask all of those nursing programs, and they can probably tell you the number of nursing students that they have had who qualified and met the criteria for the GPA and other things, but they had to turn them away just because they didn't have enough faculty," Meadows said.
