RALEIGH (July 27, 2022) – As the 9th-largest state in the country, and with companies like Apple, Google, Fujifilm Diosynth, Boom Supersonic and Toyota headed here, North Carolina simply needs more engineers.
NC State University Chancellor Randy Woodson makes the case in the accompanying video.
“The whole notion of producing the talented workforce is at the heart of what NC State does – and what the UNC System does,” Woodson says.
The recent announcements of big-name corporations moving to the state – more than Woodson says he’s seen in a dozen years – point to the growing need for a well-educated workforce in North Carolina.
“One of our major contributions there is engineering. We’re currently the 11th-largest engineering program in the country. But to keep up with the economy of the state and to provide the critical workforce, we need to be bigger,” Woodson says.
NC State has been forced to turn away qualified North Carolina students, the chancellor says.
“We had 1,600 North Carolina applicants last year that did not get into our school that had a 3.8 GPA or higher – they may have had one or two Bs (in high school),” he says.
Woodson says he heard from “a fair number of those” students who went to Virginia Tech, Purdue or other large engineering programs and paid out-of-state tuition.
“So we have the demand on the front end. We have the demand on the back end for the workforce. We just needed the legislature to help us get started,” he says.
David Farmer says
Minimum GPAs are a joke with all the honors, AP, and IB programs pushing GPAs above 4.0. A typical student, with a passion for math and science will do fine as an engineer.
Ed Samulski says
Long before North Carolina aspired to attract high-tech companies that require a workforce trained in engineering and the applied sciences, the UNC System’s decision to constrain curricula at its flagship institutions–engineering at State and medicine at Carolina–has resulted in the dearth of technically trained workers in one of the fastest growing states in the country. It’s time to reconsider this nearly century-old, bipartite decision; it has outlived its short-term, fiduciary motivation.