Investing in our colleges is investing in North Carolinians

All people deserve the opportunity to thrive. This means having the chance to develop one’s talents and skills and find meaningful and fulfilling work that pays a living wage. To make this a reality, we need well-funded systems in place that allow everyone, regardless of their gender, race, or class, the opportunity to improve their lives through education and hard work. This means those corporations benefiting from our collective labor must pay their fair share in funding these systems so that we can all benefit.   

The Inflation Reduction Act (IRA) and other related legislation spawned billions in investment in renewables and advanced manufacturing in North Carolina, initiating the transformation of NC into a manufacturing hub for electric vehicles (EVs) and batteries and creating a promise of new, well-paying jobs in existentially important industries. This trend is expected to continue and bring with it tens of thousands of jobs in advanced manufacturing and renewable energy technologies in NC.  

However, for North Carolinians to be well positioned to take advantage of these new jobs, we need the training infrastructure in place to develop our workforce. For the first time, federal funding is available to support low-income students taking short-term training programs. Now, our state lawmakers need to step up and tax corporations to make them pay what they owe, so that we can:  

• Fund our colleges to develop the needed programs.
• Purchase the requisite technology to train students. 
• Hire qualified staff to teach students looking to break into these emerging sectors. 
• Connect students with employers offering well-paying salaries for meaningful and fulfilling labor.  

North Carolinians would benefit, our economy would benefit, and businesses would benefit. 

The Inflation Reduction Act: Context and impact 

In 2022, the Inflation Reduction Act (IRA) was signed into law, marking the largest climate investment planned in the history of the United States. Had the Trump administration and Congress not dismantled various elements of the legislation, it would have invested $369 billion to accelerate the production and adoption of renewable energy technologies, with the goals of:

• Reducing emissions, home energy bills, and transportation costs. 
• Making our communities more resilient to the impacts of human-caused climate change. 
• Advancing environmental justice. 
• Transforming the US into a leading manufacturing center for renewable energy technologies. 

The ambitious legislation aimed to achieve these various goals through a series of tax credits, deductions, and rebates for households and businesses, direct-pay opportunities so that nonprofit organizations could also take advantage of these tax credits, and a myriad of grant and loan programs.  

This dizzying array of opportunities was buttressed by other legislation — such as the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act (IIJA)¹The IIJA is also known as the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law (BIL). and the CHIPS Act — which included significant investments into: 

• Building out a national EV charging network.
• The overhaul of the nation’s power infrastructure.
• Semiconductors and other advanced manufacturing needs that are important for critical energy technologies, security, and broader supply-chain resilience.

States also supplemented these federal laws with a variety of state economic development incentives. For instance, NC offered economic development incentives to several corporations investing in renewables and advanced manufacturing in the state, such as Toyota, Dai Nippon Printing, Epsilon Advanced Materials, Forge Nano, Kempower, Siemens Energy, and Wolfspeed, among others. 

The combined effect of these programs has been a rapid acceleration of investment in the manufacturing of renewable energy technologies across the country. 

Since 2021, private businesses in the renewable energy and advanced manufacturing sectors have announced that they plan to invest over $24 billion in NC, with initial projections of over 23,000 jobs. Like much of the Southeast and Midwest, most of the investment planned in NC has been concentrated in EV and battery manufacturing, along with related inputs like lithium mining and semiconductor manufacturing, so much so that some have started referring to the region as “the Battery Belt.” 

These massive investments into renewables have also been largely targeted in low-income and marginalized communities. This is because the IRA offers additional incentives for investments in low-income communities and communities that have historically depended on the fossil-fuel sector. The private investments planned in these communities was buttressed by the Justice40 Initiative, which made it a goal of the federal government to invest 40 percent of certain federal funding for infrastructure, clean energy, and climate resilience in low-income and marginalized communities — what would have been approximately $115 billion in funding were the initiative not terminated by the Trump administration. In spite of the termination of Justice40 and changes to the IRA discussed further below, the past few years have been marked not just by a broad shift toward renewable energy but also a promise of jobs and economic opportunity for some of the most marginalized and neglected communities.  

Furthermore, workers in the renewable energy sector already tend to earn higher wages than the national average. Even at the entry level, workers in these sectors earn $5 to $7 more per hour than entry-level workers on average. The United Auto Workers (UAW) has also made it a priority to organize non-unionized auto and battery workers in the South and ensure that all these workers receive the benefits of labor unions, making these opportunities all the more attractive for those looking for work. 

Because the IRA provides additional tax-credit bonuses for projects that meet prevailing wage standards and that hire a sufficient portion of qualified apprentices during construction, even those workers not directly working in these sectors stand to benefit from the transition to renewables and all the jobs and new facilities being created in the process. 

In short, the IRA has been effective in incentivizing new investment in important industries and creating a promise of new, good-paying jobs in communities that need them the most.  

Notwithstanding a hostile federal government, the renewable transition will continue

Despite the effectiveness of the legislation, Congress and the Trump administration have significantly curbed policies to prioritize handouts for fossil-fuel companies and tax cuts for the ultra-wealthy. Throughout 2025, through executive orders, administrative actions, and the unpopular federal megabill (a.k.a. HR1 or “One Big Beautiful Bill Act,”) we have seen the: the: 

• Termination of the Justice40 Initiative, as part of a broad anti-DEI push. 
• Cancellation of hundreds of transformative grants.
• Illegal freezing and rescinding of IRA and other federal funding.
• Accelerated sunsetting of IRA tax credits and the imposition of restrictive new requirements on the use of the remaining tax credits. 

These actions have consequences. Several projects that had been planned have been cancelled, delayed, or scaled back as a result of these federal actions. At least $1.7 billion in investment in NC has already been cancelled or delayed. Including other projects that have been scaled back, at least 2,000 jobs that were projected in NC have been eliminated. Looking ahead, climate policy think tank, Energy Innovation, estimates that due to changes in energy policy made by the harmful federal megabill, by 2030, NC will experience annual losses of $7.6 billion in GDP and 41,000 jobs.  

Nonetheless, a majority of the projects in the state that are already planned are still going ahead or already operational, and the transition to renewable energy is expected to continue, albeit at a much slower pace, and with the US even further behind competitors like China who remain at the vanguard of renewable energy and advanced manufacturing. 

What this means is that even in spite of the choices of our federal representatives and the headwinds that they’ve created, NC and the US will continue to see more and more jobs and investment in the renewable energy and advanced manufacturing sectors in the latter half of the decade and beyond.

The transition to renewables requires investment in workforce development

With all the federal rollbacks, much of the discussion among advocates has (rightly) focused on ways that states can counteract some of the worst impacts caused by federal actors, especially with respect to climate legislation, food assistance, and health care — the programs that have been most severely targeted in federal legislation. 

But one area that has received insufficient attention — even before all the recent actions by Congress and the Trump administration — is the need for investment in the requisite workforce development infrastructure related to renewable energy. 

With all the jobs that are projected in the renewable energy and advanced manufacturing sectors, we need a trained workforce that has the skills required to fill these jobs. Yet in NC, roughly half of employers in the energy sector and those hiring for manufacturing across sectors report hiring difficulties. This is in part due to insufficient awareness of these career paths. Beyond that, the bigger problem is that our state lacks the ability to scale the training programs needed to produce a workforce qualified to secure these emerging jobs. 

These new jobs are not entirely new careers. As one might expect, what’s needed are, for example, engineers, machine operators, quality assurance and maintenance technicians, support specialists, account managers, and buyers and sellers of products. But these positions do require specialization and upskilling, and our workforce development infrastructure is currently not set up to meet the demands of the industry at scale. 

One of the biggest challenges at community colleges and universities is retaining qualified staff to teach the courses and train students, since those who are qualified can earn far more in the private sector. Securing funding to purchase the equipment required to provide the necessary hands-on training is another important need. The NC Business Committee for Education, which operates out of the governor’s office, has received a grant to design curriculum and support students in the EV sector, but without addressing instructor and equipment needs, there’s insufficient capacity to provide training for these students.  

AdvanceNC leads the way, but funding remains an issue 

Although the new investments in manufacturing span across the state, they’re concentrated mostly in the Piedmont region in the central part of NC.  

Noticing the cluster of new facilities and the need to develop the workforce development needs of the industry, a collaborative group of community colleges, universities, and workforce development boards was formed in September 2023 to address these needs. Because of their focus on advanced manufacturing, including the manufacturing of EVs and renewables, the group chose the name AdvanceNC. As of December 2025, the group includes 12 community colleges, 3 universities, and 7 workforce development boards, across 21 counties.  

AdvanceNC has been soliciting support from employers to build out needed workforce development infrastructure, focusing on those career pathways in highest demand.  

Key strategies and programs that the group is pursuing include: 

• Collaborative curriculum and micro-pathway development with employers: After piloting these, colleges and universities share the programming with one another.   
• Collaboration between employers and colleges to increase instructional capacity: AdvanceNC has proposed that employers dedicate some of their new hires’ time to support technical training for skills specific to renewable energy and advanced manufacturing, while colleges manage lectures, logistics, and the classroom to minimize the lift.  
• Collaboration across colleges to increase instructional capacity: AdvanceNC is piloting opportunities for community colleges to share faculty in high demand areas, so that the teaching staff with the relevant skills has the widest possible reach. 
• Collaboration with NC State’s engineering education program: Students in this program, who want to be educators for future engineers, need practical experience to complete their degree or certificate. By allowing these future educators to teach college courses to students pursuing advanced manufacturing jobs, both parties benefit.  
• Regional hub model for high-cost equipment-based training: AdvanceNC is exploring reducing equipment costs by teaching hands-on training components at specific colleges, especially the Moore Center at Central Carolina Community College. For example, if 10 colleges in a given region are teaching the same curriculum, students from all 10 colleges could go to a single, centrally located college for the specific, highly technical hands-on component of the class. This regional hub model is common in other contexts — for instance, this is generally how big rig drivers are trained.

These sorts of creative solutions by AdvanceNC are laudable. Yet at the same time, creative solutions can only go so far without funding. Reducing equipment and instructional costs through the sort of cost-sharing strategies mentioned above does not eliminate costs entirely. Equipment still needs to be purchased to train students, even if less of it is needed. Students and private sector workers can meet some of the training needs, but there will still be gaps with respect to specific skills, as well as limitations of scalability and consistency over the long term.  

Moreover, AdvanceNC is currently reliant entirely on philanthropic funding and volunteer efforts, and so they face serious challenges of capacity that prevent them from scaling and sustaining the efforts in the way that is needed. They need full-time staff who understand and are dedicated to these efforts, alongside finances to cover operating costs. 

All these efforts require state dollars to be accomplished efficiently. It costs money to secure equipment, to retain qualified educators, to engage employers, and to dedicate full-time staff capacity to AdvanceNC.  

The state needs to step up, tax corporations, and fund our colleges 

Part of the promise of the IRA and all these investments was employment opportunities for North Carolinians. This is why the state dedicated millions of dollars in direct, economic-development incentive packages to these multi-national corporations to invest in NC. But North Carolinians can only benefit from these jobs provided that the state pairs these incentive packages with investments in our colleges to train the workforce so they have the skills needed to take advantage of the jobs.  

North Carolinians will clearly benefit from such investments into our colleges, and a robust workforce development infrastructure tailored to the needs of emerging industries will only make the state more attractive to corporations looking for a place to locate their factories, thereby benefiting the broader NC economy. 

But it should also be emphasized that these investments directly benefit the corporations who have made the investments in the state already. It is the corporations that need skilled labor to turn a profit. Without qualified labor at scale, the millions — and in some cases billions — of dollars of investment will sit idly and constitute massive sunk costs. It is workers that power the economy, and in today’s world, what’s needed are skilled workers. 

Moreover, even setting aside the fact that these corporations received money from the state because of the jobs that they were promising to North Carolinians, it’s in the interest of these businesses to hire NC-based workers. Paying for workers to relocate from out of state is itself costly, and besides, given how new these jobs are, there is a general lack of available and qualified workers for these emerging roles nationwide. The obvious solution is direct investment into our colleges and our workforce development infrastructure. 

Many corporations are already recognizing this, which is why we have seen some collaboration and direct investment into the workforce infrastructure by corporations: 

• Wolfspeed (a semiconductor manufacturer) is collaborating with AdvanceNC.
• Epsilon Advanced Materials, Inc. (a battery company) is collaborating with Brunswick Community College on a specialized training certificate program tailored to their hiring needs.  
• Toyota has made direct investments in education programs in Greensboro and Randolph County.
• Siemens Energy is working with the state to develop the workforce development pipeline for EV charging stations.
• Before the company shut down due to uncertainty surrounding tariffs and changes to the IRA tax credits, Natron Energy, Inc. (another battery company) was working with Edgecombe Community College to develop a training program.  

Absent direct funding from the state, corporations will need to continue this style of fragmented investments into workforce development programs at nearby colleges. While it is in the interest of these corporations to coordinate their efforts with entities like AdvanceNC to reduce costs and provide uniform training and credentials across programs, there is no reason to rely on volunteer efforts to solicit business engagement and a hope that corporations will provide uptake.  

It’s far more reliable and efficient for the state to simply tax corporations and fund our colleges directly. This is the entire reason that businesses, labor unions, and civic leaders worked together to establish the federal apprenticeship system in the 1930s. We don’t need to reinvent the wheel. We just need to tax corporations and invest in our workforce and our communities. Workers benefit. Businesses benefit. NC benefits. This is a no-brainer.  

Yet despite the obvious benefit, our state lawmakers are continuing to go ahead with unpopular tax cuts for corporations — a trend that has been ongoing since 2013. By 2030, corporations will pay no state income taxes in NC. It’s time that our lawmakers get serious, tax corporations, and invest in NC so that every North Carolinian can thrive as we build together a green economy.  

With the recent passing of Workforce Pell to provide low-income students with federal funding to help pay for short-term job training in high-skill, high-wage, or in-demand sectors, there’s no better time than 2026 to invest in our colleges and the workers of NC. The state is currently devising strategies to implement the grants effectively. These strategies should include things like providing career navigation services, producing robust data on program outcomes, and offering supportive services such as child care, transportation, and food assistance. Alongside these efforts, NC needs to invest in our colleges and workers by building out the programs for the emerging sectors discussed in this report.  

In summary, the surest and most reliable way to fill the gaps and guarantee that North Carolinians can benefit from these emerging jobs is for the NC General Assembly to stop cutting taxes for corporations and ultra-wealthy and use some of the billions saved to fund community colleges to build out the needed training programs. AdvanceNC has already laid the organizational foundation for these efforts. We just need to fund them so that we can create a thriving workforce and a thriving NC.

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Inflation Reduction Act vs. HR1

This report is focused on the impact of policy decisions on investment and new jobs for North Carolinians, showing the need to invest in our colleges so that they train North Carolina’s workforce and enable tens of thousands of North Carolinians to thrive. But it is worth briefly touching on some of the other impacts of the Inflation Reduction Act (IRA) and the cuts to it: By highlighting the impact on home-energy costs and greenhouse gas emissions, we can emphasize the importance of the jobs that the IRA helped spawn and the meaningful work opportunities that have come to NC. We can also document some of the many harms that are expected due to the cuts made by HR1, the harmful federal megabill, which weakened or eliminated many of the IRA’s provisions.

	IRA As passed in 2022	HR1 (aka “One Big Beautiful Bill Act”) Passed in July 2025, undoing many IRA provisions
Energy Affordability	IRA tax credits such as those for residential solar panels and other energy-saving property improvements estimated to save the average household $170 to $220 per year over the next decade US households estimated to save up to $278 billion combined	Phases out residential tax credits in 2025, increasing average annual household energy costs in NC by $220 in 2030, compared to IRA baseline Eliminates the household energy savings projected from the IRA
Climate Emissions	Estimated to reduce emissions by 40 percent to 44 percent below peak 2005 levels by 2035 While still below the 61 percent to 66 percent reduction below 2005 levels that the US pledged to reach by 2035, this marked an important first step toward serious action on climate change.	The rate of US emissions reductions is expected to slow dramatically. By 2035, it is estimated that emissions levels will be just 25 percent below 2005 levels. This puts the US far out of step with international agreements to curb climate change.

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Appendix on Methodology 

NC-specific data on planned investments and jobs announcements were pulled from Clean Economy Tracker and Climate Power. All data points were cross referenced with press releases from the NC Department of Commerce and various media outlets. Where there were conflicts between the datasets or with press releases and media outlets, information from press releases and media outlets was prioritized. Projects that were canceled after initial announcements were excluded from data, and other known projects not included in the original datasets were added.  

Footnotes

• 1
  The IIJA is also known as the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law (BIL).