With a variety of community colleges and four-year universities across the Western North Carolina region, post-secondary education institutions play a significant role as employers and economic contributors, in addition to cultivating the region’s incoming workforce.

In Buncombe County, University of North Carolina Asheville employs 698 permanent faculty and staff. In 2020, a study calculated an economic impact of $450 million; $31 million of which is attributed to the athletics program alone.

UNC Asheville also attracts students from across the state and the region to study, live, and work in WNC. With a student body of around 3,000, only 38% already live in the region. The remaining 62%, 20% from other states, relocated to WNC for school, and according to UNC Asheville Chancellor Kimberly van Noort, there are programs, partnerships, and internships to encourage them to stay.

“Historically across the UNC system, between 30% and 35% of out-of-state students who come into North Carolina to attend a public university stay here,” van Noort said. “We are helping with an incoming population of people who are going to stay here. They’re going to be young, educated, and they’re going to enter our workforce.”

Through the University’s Career Services Center, students receive assistance when considering careers and preparing for interviews, and can participate in programs which connect students with local employers. There are career fairs on campus, internship programs, and partnerships with other institutions to create career pathways for students.

The trending focus of providing students a better return on their investment is not just local; Chancellor van Noort said it is nationwide. Ensuring students are prepared for their jobs as well as for long-term careers is a priority. Providing an education that is a foundation which allows students to change career tracks and encourages lifelong learning offers students the ability to build a career over a lifespan, not just the skills for their first job out of school.

Conversations between University leadership and area employers have shifted curriculum programs to ensure graduates are prepared for what local businesses need in terms of incoming staff. New programs like New Media, Mass Communications, and Digital Design, and the expansion of programs like Computer Science are deliberate choices to ensure students have the skills employers are looking for upon graduation. The curriculum has also expanded to focus on data science, robotics, climate resilience, health science, business analytics, economics, and finance. These expansions reflect an emphasis on serving the region by improving the labor forces for the sectors growing in WNC.

“We spend a lot of time interfacing with local businesses to find out what it is they’re looking for,” van Noort said. “There has been a lot of emphasis placed on how we’re serving the region and how we’re preparing and attracting students not only to move into the region, but to stay here.”

Ensuring UNC Asheville’s academic portfolio is up-to-date and as innovative as possible is an ongoing challenge, according to van Noort. Changing demands create a constant state of continuous improvement, which requires regularly reviewing portfolios to confirm the University is offering the right mix of programs that support the needs of the community’s employers.

Shifting demographics is another concern for UNC Asheville as well as other universities statewide and nationwide. There are fewer and fewer 18-year-olds entering post-secondary education institutions, meaning there are fewer and fewer people entering the workforce — a major consideration to examine for the next 10-20 years or more.

“This should be of concern to everyone,” van Noort said. “We’re constantly thinking about what we’re doing in order to promote in-migration, keeping those students here, and making sure our own younger students are college-ready. It’s not just the four-year or the post-secondary sector that needs to be engaged here; it’s also our K-12 schools and early childhood education facilities as well, because the continuum of the education pipeline starts at birth. We have to be ready to make sure that all the way along, our workforce is being cultivated and prepared in ways that will benefit the state.”