Community college initiatives hope to fend off NC worker shortage

North Carolina employers facing an impending worker shortage, especially in rural areas, are hoping a state push to train more young people, especially through community colleges, pays off. 

In 2019, North Carolina set a goal to have 2 million 25- to 44-year-old residents with degrees or industry-recognized credentials in the state by 2030. The clock is ticking. With less than four years from the self-imposed deadline, the state has added less than half of the additional qualified young people it needs — and still has about 277,000 more to go.

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Leaders at the helm of the effort say the community college system has been a vital part of working toward the goal, as many schools have introduced programs to aid in student success in the classroom, degree attainment and connecting students and job-seekers with employers in rural areas. 

Although based in rural, local communities, those ventures have attracted statewide attention and beyond, including from the likes of the Aspen Institute. 

President of the NC Rural Center, a private nonprofit organization, Patrick Woodie told Carolina Public Press that education and workforce development has become the organization’s top concern for rural North Carolinians. That will look different in each community, he said, but the need for healthcare and manufacturing workers is a “common denominator.” 

It didn’t always seem to him that educational opportunities in the state aligned with these needs. But in the last several years, he has felt that divide close “in a powerful way” as education leaders have begun to emphasize workforce alignment. He attributes much of that to the work of one initiative — myFutureNC.

The “attainment goal” of 2 million by 2030 grew out of a recommendation from myFutureNC, a nonprofit organization connecting policymakers to education, business and philanthropy. The idea received bipartisan support in 2019. 

“Their work in particular has helped all the partners that make up that workforce ecosystem focus, single-mindedly, on this overall idea of ‘We’ve got to get every working-age adult to higher levels of educational attainment,’” Woodie said. “That’s our big challenge.”

The state legislature recently upped its commitment by funding the Workforce Act of 2026, giving myFutureNC $8 million to support work-based learning, career planning technology, workforce development grants and expanded pathways for transfer students.

MyFutureNC describes the attainment goal as a snapshot of North Carolina residents, aged 25 to 44, at a given point in time, rather than a cumulative count of individuals over the years. So as the population changes, so does who is included in the current figure — someone who turns 45 ages out, while those that turn 25 age in. Similarly, as North Carolina gains and loses residents, the current status is adjusted accordingly.

At the time of the legislation, North Carolina had about 1.45 million credentialed people in the age bracket, up from 1.3 million in 2016. Less than four years out from 2030, myFutureNC tracks the current figure at just over 1.72 million, with a little more than 277,000 to go. It uses data from the U.S. Census Bureau’s American Community Survey to determine who gets counted toward the goal.

While there’s more work to be done, president of myFutureNC Cecilia Holden said, the state has made significant progress. The organization uses nearly 20 performance indicators to track progress, ranging from pre-K enrollment to chronic absenteeism to FAFSA completion, all with individual goals of their own.

North Carolina is 6% away from its goal of a 95% high school graduation rate, which would make it the highest in the South, according to myFutureNC. The percentage of North Carolina residents aged 25-44 participating in the labor force is just 2% away from its 86% goal. The state has already exceeded its goals for first-year persistence rate and postsecondary completion rate at two-year public institutions.

Other indicators face larger hurdles, particularly at the K-12 level. Just 33% of North Carolina students in grades 3-8 earned a “college-and-career-ready score” of a four or five on the end-of-grade reading exam, despite its goal of 73%. On the end-of-grade math exam, 40% earned a four or five. The goal is 86%.

The current percentage of 18-24 year olds enrolled in a postsecondary institution sits at 40%, with the goal of 47% in sight. Within the overall percentage, non-metropolitan rural counties had the second highest enrollment rates in 2024, although rates were lowest in rural counties within a metropolitan area. The state needs nearly 77,000 more young people to enroll to meet the goal by 2030.

While four-year universities bring complementary strengths, community colleges have played a crucial role in the success so far — of the 58 in North Carolina, 46 are rural-serving — as they often provide a more affordable and geographically advantageous option for individuals to receive training close to home, Holden said.

“Community colleges are uniquely positioned to provide affordable, geographically accessible and flexible education and training, often responding quickly to local workforce needs,” she told CPP. 

Developing the local workforce

Surry Community College, based in the small town of Dobson near the eastern edge of the Blue Ridge Mountains, has tutoring centers in fellow Surry County towns Mount Airy, Pilot Mountain and Elkin, as well as Yadkinville in Yadkin County.

Surry-Yadkin Works was named by myFutureNC as the 2026 Champion for Attainment for its contributions to the 2030 goal. The organization partners with the college and local businesses to connect students with employers in manufacturing, healthcare, education and other fields, offering pre-apprenticeships to local high schoolers and postsecondary apprenticeships to young workers, many enrolled at SCC. 

The program, independent from myFutureNC but consciously working toward the attainment goal, is funded by both counties’ commissioners.

Around the time the program started, executive director of Surry-Yadkin Works Crystal Folger-Hawks said businesses around Surry and Yadkin counties faced the retirement of up to 10,000 employees in the next 10 years. They wondered how they would fill the gap. 

Meanwhile, local students who wanted stable, well-paying jobs felt like they would have to head to urban areas, she said. Research by the NC Rural Center shows the number of young adults continues to fall in rural areas, while soaring in urban and suburban counties. 

The NC Rural Center found rural North Carolina is aging at a faster rate than the whole of the state, with western and northeastern counties being the oldest areas, and research shows the greater share of older adults a county has, the lower their labor force participation is. The center’s research suggests rural counties are dealing with the challenge of an aging community more than suburban and urban North Carolina, it said.

Instead of young workers fleeing communities they’ve known their whole lives and rural businesses having to recruit from urban areas — a challenge in and of itself, Folger-Hawks noted — Surry-Yadkin Works educates both parties on the opportunities available in their own backyard.

Sometimes that means taking classes at Surry Community College alongside their high school coursework. A high-schooler interested in welding, for example, would likely have to take classes the college offers to help prepare for the pre-apprenticeship. 

Other times, students graduate from high school and seek degrees from the college or a four-year school elsewhere in the state. In those cases, there is the hope that students will return to the area to put their degree to use in the local community. Based on what she’s been hearing, Folger-Hawks said, they are doing so increasingly often.

Surry-Yadkin Works doesn’t always lead to completing degrees in the traditional sense. Sometimes students opt to earn an industry-recognized certification, which does go toward myFutureNC’s attainment goal.

Degrees aren’t everyone’s end goal and aren’t required for all industries, Folger-Hawks said.  But she does encourage students to complete them or certificates for their own benefit.

“Sometimes they’re like, ‘Well, I didn’t think I needed (a degree) to work there.’ You don’t, but this is yours,” she said. 

“You’re going to be able to take this with you anywhere, and you don’t know what life is going to hold.”

After completing an internship during high school doing custodial work and later heating and air conditioning at a local elementary school, Victor Hall went on to take classes at Surry Community College, and now he works full time in HVAC for Surry County Schools. 

Hall didn’t know what kind of job he wanted going in. Surry-Yadkin Works, and eventually people like Doug Dixon, director of maintenance for the district, helped him decide what would be the best fit. While taking classes at the community college, he found that working in the field at the same time helped him apply what he was learning in the classroom. 

“I took college classes and worked, and so it was a good mix,” Hall said. “I learned a lot here and learned a lot in college, so it just mixed it all together.”

Dixon said Hall was young, having just completed high school, but already mechanically inclined. While the program obviously benefitted Hall, Dixon said it’s been just as much of a win for him as an employer.

“The program paid for his college, didn’t cost him a thing, and he was paid here for his work,” Dixon said.

“It was a real plus for us as an employer, because we got some help here part time, and it was training him at the college. Once he came out, and I’ve noticed this with other interns, they’re staying in the area because they’re picking up all the trades. Surry County actually has a large trade base with a lot of mechanical contractors and a lot of electrical contractors in the area, so my peers in other areas are picking up these students coming out of this program. So yeah, it is keeping people at home a little bit.”

Hall’s family lives in Surry County, and being near them while starting his career is “a plus,” he said.

At Stanly Community College in Albemarle, a rural community about 50 miles east of Charlotte, president John Enamait and faculty began to see that student success rates in general education classes, particularly English, were lower in certain programs. 

For students trying to obtain an industry-specific credential, these classes can pose a barrier to completion. 

To close this gap, Stanly piloted “contextualized” English classes beginning with the early childhood education program. Instead of taking typical English classes, the curriculum is tailored to the specific field of study to make readings and assignments align with the students’ chosen pathway in hopes of boosting engagement and retention.

Before offering the new curriculum, students in the early childhood education program from 2019 to 2021 averaged a 65% success rate, or passing grades, and 28% withdrawal rate in ENG111.

From 2024 to 2025, early childhood education students taking contextualized ENG111 classes had an 82% success rate, an improvement of 17%. Those students had a 9% withdrawal rate, which is down 19%. Those rates are better than collegewide averages from the same time period. 

Stanly hopes to experiment with contextualized math classes soon, which Enamait said would benefit students in trades like machining and carpentry. Although those fields often require more math, students learn what they need for the job, not trigonometry, he said.

Stanly was recognized by the Aspen Institute this year as one of the top 10 US community colleges based on student success, workforce outcomes and transfers to four-year universities. Despite such notable efforts to make a community college education more accessible and impactful, barriers remain for some rural residents. 

A.J. Jaeger, executive director of the Belk Center for Community College Leadership and Research at NC State University, told CPP that its research shows the primary reasons adult learners choose not to finish community college degrees are costs for tuition and materials and time away from work and family, which also involve further costs like lost wages and childcare.

NC Reconnect, funded primarily by the John M. Belk Endowment, partners with myFutureNC, the Belk Center and the North Carolina Community College System to help former students aged 25-44 reenroll and develop a plan for finishing their degree. Since launching in 2021, it has grown to support 29 of the state’s community colleges, 25 of which are rural-serving. 

Participating colleges have implemented innovative ways to earn students back. James Sprunt Community College guarantees orientation, financial aid and class registration be completed in one 90-minute session. Forsyth Tech offers drop-in daycare while parents fill out paperwork and applications. Pitt Community College created an adult-learning center so continuing-education students have a welcoming spot on campus.

Of the five schools in the inaugural cohort alone, NC Reconnect outreach led 753 students to reenroll, 68% of whom completed a degree, credential or enrolled in the following semester. From this group, continuing education students achieved an estimated median increase in annual earnings of $20,700 and $17,100 for career and technical education students, which the Belk Center said directly supports North Carolina’s 2030 goal by fueling economic development across the state.

What’s next?

Despite significant progress toward the goal, critical gaps remain. MyFutureNC hopes to leave no one behind.

“When we look at the state of North Carolina, it was not just about the number 2 million by 2030. Instead, it was really more centered around making sure that every county can thrive, so that means all 100 counties,” Holden from myFutureNC said.

“The good news is 85 of 100 counties have actually increased in educational attainment since we started counting,” Holden said. “The bad news is all 15 that are not increasing in attainment are rural communities.”

Statewide numbers can mask significant local differences, Holden said.

No single intervention method is planned for these counties, because their contexts and needs vary. MyFutureNC is using county-level data and regional support to help local leaders understand their specific barriers and opportunities to bring education, workforce, employers and community partners together. And this summer, it pledged eight counties — seven of which are at least partially rural — $200,000 each over the next two years to aid in their degree or credential attainment initiatives. 

“We will continue to be laser focused on that cross-sector collaboration, particularly on reaching populations that have too often been disconnected from education and workforce opportunities, strengthening alignment between education and labor market needs through work-based learning and helping communities learn from and scale practices that are producing results,” Holden said.

The goal of 2 million by 2030 is a milestone, not an expiration date, Holden said. MyFutureNC is already considering what comes next. A durable education-to-workforce system that leads to economic opportunity for North Carolinians and the state’s employers is the larger objective.

“The work happening now — stronger education and career pathways, better data, aligned policy and deeper partnerships among K-12, community colleges, universities, workforce organizations and employers — is intended to last well beyond 2030,” she said.

Editor’s note: This reporting is part of a collaboration with the Institute for Nonprofit News‘ Rural News Network. Five nonprofit newsrooms were involved: Barn Raiser, Carolina Public Press, Mountain State Spotlight, Oklahoma Watch and Shasta Scout. The series was edited by veteran investigative editor Dee J. Hall, co-founder and former managing editor of Wisconsin Watch. Support from Ascendium Education Group made this project possible.

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