Weakened by years without raises for instructors, North Carolina’s public universities are losing the war for faculty talent.

In the past two years, 3 out of 4 faculty members who received outside offers decided to leave our state’s public universities.  In all, 320 of the University system’s best instructors were lured away.

And they took more than $91M in research dollars with them.[1] That money could have benefited North Carolina students, employers and the long-term health of our economy.

Our universities remain vulnerable to losing their best and brightest teachers and researchers.  Since 2008, University faculty have received just one across-the-board raise — of 1.2 percent.

Last year, when state lawmakers raised pay for K-12 teachers by an average of 5.5 percent, they provided just $5 million for raises for 19,000 instructors across 16 University campuses – an average of $263 each.[2] Most faculty won’t see any pay increase this year.

That presents a major problem as other states reinvest in higher education, giving them the resources to poach the best faculty from North Carolina.

• McGill University in Montreal is building a world-class research program in pain genetics, a field that promises to revolutionize the way medication is tailored to individual patients. The groundbreaking effort will be overseen by Dr. Luda Diatchenko, an internationally respected expert. Diatchenko left UNC-Chapel Hill’s School of Dentistry last year when McGill offered her a $30 million package that included multiple faculty and staff positions.[3]

• Kansas State University now has a fantastic extension service that places student interns at agriculture facilities across the state. It’s run by Dr. Charles Stark, who brings in millions in outside grant funding to help build next-generation industries around livestock, feed grains, milk, and eggs. He used to build those industries in North Carolina, but N.C. State University didn’t have the resources to keep him here.[4]

• The College of William and Mary has benefited handsomely from the microbiology research of Dr. Bongkeun Song. He’s now helping Virginia identify the sources of water contamination by examining soil microbes, a process that could lead to smarter and more efficient environmental protection. He used to do that work for UNC-Wilmington, where he brought in $3 million in outside grant dollars.[5]

• North Carolina Central University found a brilliant, capable physicist with a knack for mentoring young STEM students. With an interdisciplinary focus on engineering physics, Dr. Tanina Bradley was ready to help NCCU graduate badly needed science students to work in some of North Carolina’s most high-demand fields.  But North Carolina couldn’t compete with the US Patent and Trademark Office.  She left for Washington before NCCU could find money for a counteroffer. [6]

Over time, losses like these add up to a weaker, less competitive University. And that will mean a weaker, less competitive economy for North Carolina.