RALEIGH (January 29, 2026) – The NC Teaching Fellows – which offer forgivable loans of up to $10,000 a year to aspiring teachers at our state’s universities – have seen extraordinary growth in the past year despite limits imposed by state legislators.
And that’s cause for celebration.
The program grew from 575 would-be teachers in 2024-25 to 945 this year – a 64% increase.1
“The program has experienced tremendous growth,” Dr. Bennett Jones, director of the Teaching Fellows, told a UNC Board of Governors committee Wednesday.
That appears to be fueled by an expansion of the program in 2024-25 to include teachers in elementary education. NC State University, followed by East Carolina and Appalachian State universities, leads the state in enrollment of Teaching Fellows.
These aspirational – and inspirational – young people see the value in educating and mentoring our next generation of workers, co-workers and colleagues.
Which begs the question, in a state starving for teachers, of why the program was cut in the first place.
Launched in 1986, the Teaching Fellows program was suspended by the General Assembly in 2011 and resumed in limited fields in 2017.2
TO BE SURE, the Teaching Fellows alone won’t replace the thousands of teachers who have left the profession in recent years.3
But it is nevertheless encouraging.
Jones said some school districts have launched “grow-your-own” teacher pipelines in recent years.
Ten universities – two of them private – participate in the Teaching Fellows program.
When former Board of Governors Chair Randy Ramsey asked why all 16 of the state’s universities don’t participate, Teaching Fellows Vice Chair Patrick Brennan said that’s up to the General Assembly.
“Right now we’re capped legislatively,” he said.
Why? This state desperately needs good teachers. Why aren’t its so-called “leaders” willing to do what it takes?
And why don’t North Carolina voters hold legislators accountable for it?
1 https://www.northcarolina.edu/apps/bog/doc.php?id=68638&code=bog, pp. 31-41.
2 https://www.ncforum.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/09/PSF_TeachingFellowsReport_HRsingles.pdf
3 https://www.wral.com/news/education/nc-teacher-turnover-down-but-profession-has-changed-new-data-shows-april-2025/.
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