The state community college system, embroiled in debate about illegal immigrants, will have to produce thousands of additional graduates each year to deal with North Carolina's looming worker shortage, a new report says.

And those employees may have to come from the state's growing immigrant population, according to a report by the N.C. Center for Public Policy Research to be released today. By 2016, the state's population is expected to grow by 15 percent, and a huge wave of baby boomer retirements means community colleges will need to produce 19,000 more graduates each year -- a 75 percent increase over current numbers.

The nonpartisan, nonprofit think tank calls for more state money for faculty salaries, equipment, student services and academic programs in high-demand areas such as health care.

It also predicts North Carolina will need to tap into the rising number of legal and illegal immigrants. In the past decade, North Carolina's Asian population has increased 128 percent and the Latino population has jumped 394 percent, the center said.

The report comes two days after the community college system announced it would no longer admit illegal immigrants on the advice of the state Attorney General's Office. That policy will be in place until there is further guidance on the issue from the federal government.

No matter how the issue is decided, community colleges will be a big part of the solution in churning out workers for the new economy, said Scott Ralls, the system president, who reversed policy this week on admitting students in the country illegally.

At some point, if the interpretation of federal law opens college doors to them, Ralls said, then they will need to be trained and educated to be full participants in the state's economy. If not, he added, there will be more pressure on North Carolina to solve the work force shortage in other ways, such as by preventing high school and college dropouts.

"We're going to need everyone we can get," Ralls said.

Challenges ahead

The community colleges are a key to pushing North Carolina through a difficult economic transformation, said Ran Coble, director of the public policy research center. The state's 58 community colleges are successful, Coble said. But he added, "You can do a lot to improve their nimbleness and ability to adjust to this fundamental change in the economy."

North Carolina's economy is undergoing a radical reinvention, away from the old manufacturing empires of tobacco, textiles and furniture to pharmaceuticals, telecommunications, biotechnology, banking and financial services. The community college system has built-in impediments to responding, Coble said, including state funding that lags a year behind and anemic faculty salaries and equipment budgets.

Last fall, the center asked Ralls, who was then president of Craven Community College, to outline the challenges ahead.

Ralls calls them four brutal facts:

* More working adult students and the vanishing black male student.

* Low graduation rates and more students who need remediation.

* Predicted worker shortages and immigrants' emerging role.

* Rising enrollment combined with lagging faculty salaries and inadequate equipment.

Ralls said the system must re-energize technical education while also pumping up degree programs, early college high schools and costly health-care programs. The colleges have had to cut student support programs but also need to work harder to reach out to black men, more adult working students and first-year students in danger of dropping out.

"North Carolina needs us to do more," Ralls said, "when we are struggling just to keep pace."

For example, Ralls said, adult students -- many with families -- are now feeling the pressure of rising food bills and skyrocketing gas prices. Some have lost jobs. "During a recessionary period, that's when people need us," Ralls said.

A key to helping people into better jobs will be to expand the college's health-care programs. That costs money in faculty salaries and sophisticated equipment.

Wake Technical Community College President Steve Scott said about 900 people vie for 300 slots in the school's nursing program each year. But enlarging the programs is not simple. Nursing education costs more, and it's hard to attract nursing faculty members with the salaries offered.

There's also a huge demand for automotive and heavy equipment technicians, Scott said. "That's a heavy cost on equipment," he said. "You've got to train people on the latest equipment."