The University of North Carolina System Board of Governors approved UNC-Chapel Hill’s plan to offer a Bachelor of Social Work degree during its meeting Thursday. The degree expands UNC’s School of Social Work, which currently offers master’s and Ph.D. programs. UNC System leaders hope it will help address workforce shortages.
The School of Social Work has been working toward offering the degree pathway for years, with the Faculty Senate voting to approve the program in November of 2024 following the establishment of a BSW Feasibility Task Force in 2022. The school emphasized the need after the Faculty Senate vote, noting at least 30 states, including North Carolina, would likely experience a shortage of more than 195,000 social workers by 2030.
[Subscribe for FREE to Carolina Public Press’ Daily, Weekend and Election 2026 newsletters.]
The UNC System is already responsible for the lion’s share of social work degrees awarded in the state. The first workforce alignment review this year, which will be conducted biennially going forward, showed the UNC System conferred 91% of social work degrees in North Carolina, bachelor’s and beyond, between 2019 and 2024 — but critical needs still remain unmet.
Social work workforce needs
While social work was not one of the nearly 40 undersupplied fields identified — accounting, general education and nursing led the pack — the report said certain professions within social work were still feeling a strain, such as mental health services.
The report also doesn’t account for how regional needs might differ from the statewide landscape, and other studies have shown a significant lack of social workers in rural North Carolina.
“While North Carolina appears to have an adequate supply of social work degree completions, persistent workforce shortages continue to exist in specialty areas such as child and family services, substance use, etc.,” the report states.
“… One item to note about the area of Social Work is that this is an area that will need continued monitoring — and potential reassessment. First, the workforce alignment analysis is completed at a state level, which masks significant regional differences. This is quite important for a state like North Carolina — the second most rural state in America — where rural disparities exist.”
While almost 10,000 licensed clinical social workers are practicing in the state, with nearly 14,000 total licensed social workers, most of them practice in urban areas. As of 2024, urban counties have almost twice as many providers as rural ones, and Hyde and Tyrell counties have a rate of zero social workers per 10,000 people.
To address the gap, a coalition of 25 North Carolina universities, including UNC, and the state’s Department of Health and Human Services launched the Public Service Leadership Program last year, an effort designed to strengthen the social work workforce, particularly in regions with understaffed social services, mental health and community programs.
The PSLP, currently in its pilot year stage, offers academic training, leadership development and public service placement, and participants may even be eligible for loan repayment in exchange for three years of service in high-need rural and medically underserved communities.
The Social Work Coalition on North Carolina Workforce Development showed resounding support for UNC’s BSW proposal, noting it is in line with the PSLP partnership and results from recent workforce studies.
“The Coalition has acknowledged the enrollment challenges facing higher education nationally and the importance of coordinated statewide public education and marketing efforts to increase awareness of social work careers and pathways into the profession,” the letter of support states.
“Expanding educational opportunities is a strategic mechanism for equipping graduates with the skills needed to serve the state. We note that these efforts align closely with the recent creation of the Public Service Leadership Program … The PSLP reflects a significant statewide commitment to addressing workforce shortages through coordinated recruitment, leadership and clinical practices skill development, mentorship, public service placements, and educational pipeline development efforts across high schools, community colleges, and universities.”
Student demand
UNC will join 13 other UNC System institutions in offering a BSW. The program will have an enrollment limit of 75 students, placing it among the smaller programs of the bunch. Existing program sizes range from 380 students at Appalachian State to 50 at Winston-Salem State, with an average of 157 according to data from Academic Year 2023-2024. The smaller size is intentional, so as to not take away from existing programs’ pool of students.
“This will be one of the smaller programs in the state and would help to address workforce needs, but at that enrollment level, we do not believe it would have any sort of negative impact on other sister UNC institutions,” said UNC System’s Senior Vice President for Academic Affairs David J. English.
“And the Social Work Coalition on North Carolina Workforce Development, which represents 25 schools of social work across the state, public and private, provided a letter of support for UNC-Chapel Hill’s efforts to start this program, believing that it would be a part of a positive tapestry of trying to meet the workforce need for social workers in North Carolina.”
The BSW program is designed to serve students already admitted or enrolled at UNC to prevent “redistributing students among institutions,” since UNC has already seen strong demand from its students for a BSW degree. The School of Social Work has an interest database of 175 current and admitted students, and informational sessions this spring drew around 100 attendees.
“The proposed BSW will strengthen North Carolina’s social work workforce pipeline while minimizing enrollment and placement impacts on other UNC System institutions. Students who wish to pursue BSW degrees at regional institutions, rural-serving institutions, HBCUs, or institutions closer to home will continue to have strong established options across the state,” the proposal states.
“The UNC-Chapel Hill program serves a different and currently unmet need: providing a social work pathway for students who have already selected UNC-Chapel Hill and would otherwise pursue a nonsocial-work undergraduate major.”
The proposal noted strengths of the program will be a 400-hour supervised practicum, statewide agency partnerships and research opportunities and a preparation pathway that supports eligibility for Advanced Standing MSW study at UNC or other institutions.
UNC already launched two introductory social work courses for undergraduates this spring, which were both at capacity, and there were already plans to expand enrollment in those courses next semester. With the passage of the proposal, the university’s BSW program will be effective this fall.
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License. You may republish our stories for free, online or in print. Simply copy and paste the article contents from the box below. Note, some images and interactive features may not be included here.
