{"id":2052,"date":"2026-06-23T21:05:29","date_gmt":"2026-06-23T21:05:29","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/charlotterelocationguide.com\/?p=2052"},"modified":"2026-06-23T21:05:29","modified_gmt":"2026-06-23T21:05:29","slug":"an-online-university-plans-to-create-300-in-person-jobs-in-raleigh-starting-now","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/charlotterelocationguide.com\/?p=2052","title":{"rendered":"An online university plans to create 300 in-person jobs in Raleigh, starting now"},"content":{"rendered":"

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Ben Coulter\u2019s father, Myron, served as chancellor of Western Carolina University in the late 1980s and early 90s. Today, the younger Coulter is the North Carolina chancellor of a school with a name just one word away \u2014 Western Governors University.<\/p>\n

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Western Governors University is an online, private, nonprofit school founded in 1997 with nearly 200,000 students enrolled across all 50 states. Though it\u2019s headquartered in Salt Lake City, the school has now opened its second-largest office \u2014 in Raleigh.<\/p>\n

On Tuesday, WGU held a ribbon-cutting ceremony for the new Raleigh office. The sleek space spans nearly 50,000 square feet across the sixth and seventh floors of an office building in the Crabtree Valley neighborhood.<\/p>\n

As of its opening, the office is home to 105 administrative staff. The university plans to triple that number in the next five years.<\/p>\n

There are 6,100 North Carolinians currently enrolled in WGU degree programs \u2014 and nearly 11,000 that have already graduated since WGU began operating in North Carolina in 2017. In 2019, it opened a seven-person office in Durham. Coulter says this new, much larger Raleigh office is key to increasing WGU\u2019s visibility in state-level civic, policy, and business discussions.<\/p>\n

The top WGU programs in NC are business, cybersecurity and nursing. Of its NC students, 46% are first-generation college students and 22% are classified as low-income, according to Coulter. The school has 350 faculty members working in the state and transfer partnerships with 38 of the state\u2019s 58 community colleges.<\/p>\n

The Raleigh office won\u2019t change the remote instruction experience for WGU students, but it will ensure that student support services are available on Eastern Standard Time hours.<\/p>\n

Gregg Sinders<\/a>, a member of WGU\u2019s North Carolina advisory board, told attendees of the ribbon cutting that \u201cthere were some people in North Carolina that didn\u2019t want [this] to happen.\u201d<\/p>\n

In North Carolina, the UNC System must give its approval to any nonpublic and out-of-state institutions hoping to award degrees here. Leaders at WGU told The N&O that the System reached out about its plans for the Raleigh office.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe UNC System Office Licensure team<\/a> is currently reviewing WGU\u2019s application based on [our] statutory and policy requirements<\/a>,\u201d System spokesperson Andy Wallace told The N&O. \u201cAs part of that process, staff routinely seek information about an institution\u2019s planned activities in North Carolina, including whether it intends to offer in-person instruction or maintain a physical presence in the state. That process is not a competitive review. It is a consumer-protection and state authorization function. The System\u2019s responsibility is to determine whether institutions operating in North Carolina<\/a> meet the requirements established by state law and Board of Governors policy.\u201d<\/p>\n

Sinders called it a \u201cweird law\u201d on Tuesday. \u201cIt\u2019s a fairly rigorous process, so when you take the process plus the people that really didn\u2019t want competition, it was a struggle, but we got it done,\u201d Sinders said.<\/p>\n

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But university president Scott Pulsipher says WGU doesn\u2019t aim to be a competitor, but rather an addition to North Carolina\u2019s higher education ecosystem. He says the school\u2019s offerings are targeted to working adults that wouldn\u2019t otherwise pursue a post-secondary degree.<\/p>\n

But the UNC System wants to reach those people too.<\/p>\n

In 2022, UNC founded Project Kitty Hawk, which helps its universities launch online degree programs designed for working adults.<\/p>\n

The System found that two-thirds of North Carolinians who were enrolled online were attending out-of-state universities. Since then, there\u2019s been a focus on \u201cclawing some of that market share back.\u201d<\/p>\n

In March, the System announced<\/a> that more than 3,000 students had enrolled in Project Kitty Hawk since its inception. It was initially projected to hit more than 30,000 students by 2028.<\/p>\n

Meanwhile, WGU has seen double-digit enrollment growth in North Carolina every year since 2021, Coulter said.<\/p>\n

\u201cFor all the woes that COVID brought, I think it validated the model of online learning, and especially for teachers and for faculty members,\u201d Coulter said. \u201cHigher ed is dripping off the walls here in North Carolina, but there still is a need for our citizenry to have access to post-secondary education. We offer that in a low-cost, accessible way, and it\u2019s been a successful model.\u201d<\/p>\n

WGU is \u201ccompetency-based,\u201d meaning that students are evaluated based on assessments they take rather than time spent in class. WGU charges one flat fee per six-month term, and students take as many courses as they are comfortable with within that time frame. The average yearly tuition<\/a> for a bachelor\u2019s degree at WGU is $8,300.<\/p>\n

The Raleigh office will host teams like program development, infrastructure and operations, product engineering, and student support services. No academic instructors or mentors will work on site.<\/p>\n

This story was originally published June 23, 2026 at 4:37 PM<\/span> with the headline “An online university plans to create 300 in-person jobs in Raleigh, starting now.” <\/a><\/span><\/p>\n

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The online nonprofit WGU established a large Raleigh office to expand program, operations, and student support teams and hire hundreds.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":2051,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2052","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-read-todays-edition"],"yoast_head":"\nAn online university plans to create 300 in-person jobs in Raleigh, starting now - \u0421harlotte Relocation Guide<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/charlotterelocationguide.com\/?p=2052\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"An online university plans to create 300 in-person jobs in Raleigh, starting now - 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