North Carolina community colleges look to Raleigh for help

North Carolina’s community colleges have seen another surge in student enrollment this fall. Forsyth Technical Community College in Winston-Salem is one of 58 community colleges in the state and its story, like many of its peer institutions, is one of success. Seven hundred more FTCC students enrolled on the first day of class this academic year than last, and administrators anticipate welcoming 100 to 200 more by October. 

Those numbers are broken down into what’s called full-time equivalent contact hours or FTEs. This year’s FTE was up 6% which translates into $3.2 million dollars. 

Ordinarily, the General Assembly authorizes that amount before adjourning its session. This year, lawmakers left Raleigh without a budget, leaving schools to contend with sudden deficits. 

FTCC president Janet Spriggs says, based on past support by lawmakers she believes the oversight was unintentional.

"Coming out of COVID, they gave us extra money so that we would be able to pay our faculty better, to keep them," she says. "And so they have done a really great job of increasing the value of community colleges, increasing the notion that we are an asset to this state."

Spriggs says the way it’s funded is complicated by the fact that this is the second year of the General Assembly’s biennium budget. Last year’s salary increases were already passed and processed.

"I really just think what happened was there wasn't a realization that that enrollment growth wasn't automatic," says Spriggs. "It's not. It has to be appropriated every year. And somehow, I have no idea how, but somehow it slipped by."

Spriggs has already increased classroom sizes and student-teacher ratios in order to deal with the school’s current $3.2-million-dollar deficit. She says she was initially told lawmakers would return after the November election. 

Most recently she’s heard they may return in September, allowing her to budget for the spring semester and avoid cutting programs and services that would negatively impact students.