Situated along U.S. 17 just north of Bolivia in Brunswick County, the Brunswick Community College campus sprawls in a thicket of longleaf pines, and even in midsummer, students mill about and attend classes.
Community college has emerged as a popular option for students looking to save money on education or enter the workforce quickly. Overall, enrollment in community colleges across the state has increased by 16% since 2020, according to dashboards from the N.C. Community College System (NCCCS).
“The No. 1 barrier for anybody attending college is the financial barrier,” said Gene Smith, president of BCC in July. BCC eases the financial strain of higher education, especially for high school graduates of Brunswick County, who, if they enroll within four semesters, will have tuition, books and fees covered by the county.
“For a college our size, we just went from a smaller college to a mid-size college; we’ve grown about 35% in the last seven years,” Smith said.
Cape Fear Community College has faced similar growth in recent years. According to CFCC President Jim Morton, enrollment has grown 41% since 2016, and the school received applications from all 50 states last year and accepted students from 45.
“This year alone, the state average of all the colleges, all 58 community colleges, was a 6% growth for the year,” Morton said. “We grew 18% this year. We tripled the state average.”
A key factor fueling growth at both BCC and CFCC is their workforce programs, which allow students to enter the workforce as quickly as possible. At both schools, healthcare and manufacturing have emerged as the highest-need industries in the region, and those programs fill up quickly.
While workforce programs like welding or nursing may be in high demand, funding the program can be much costlier than funding a curriculum course, like history.
“If you’re going to do welding, you’ve got to have the welders, you got to have the welding booth, you got to have the air handlers, you got to have all the stock metal, you got to have all the safety equipment. You got to have the gases,” Smith said. “Whereas if you teach, let’s say, a history class, you need a great instructor and a classroom and a projector, maybe.”
When Gov. Josh Stein recently signed North Carolina’s long-overdue budget, he authorized the flow of state dollars to Propel NC, a program designed to overhaul how community colleges receive funding – for the first time in over a decade.
In practice, Propel NC means that local community colleges, BCC and CFCC, will receive more funding for workforce programs that target high-demand jobs.
“For a college our size, this funding will help us to better sustain the programs that we currently have and look at newer programs that will meet the needs of business and industry,” Smith said.
Workforce programs are typically more expensive to offer than degree-seeking programs because of high equipment and facility costs and the fact that they can require a lower faculty-to-student ratio. Under the previous funding structure, maintaining existing workforce programs and adding new ones could be challenging without additional funding.
NCCCS, the governing body for all 58 community colleges in the state, previously relied on a measure of full-time students enrolled in curriculum and basic skills courses, as well as workforce continuing education.
The previous funding formula used a four-tier approach, with curriculum courses in programs leading to immediate employment in the top tier, followed by all other technical, health science and college-level math course curricula, and all other curriculum courses leading to a third-party credential.
Because workforce continuing education programs enroll many part-time students and were funded differently than curriculum programs, colleges often received less funding for those programs despite high workforce demand.
In January 2024, members of NCCCS proposed a change to that funding structure, electing to replace the four-tiered framework with a sector-based model that organizes both curriculum and workforce continuing education programs into priority workforce sectors based on labor market demands, which would be determined by statewide and county-level analyses.
The new formula, rather than relying primarily on full-time enrollment, also analyzes student progression, credential attainment and whether programs are aligned with high-demand or high-wage careers.
When the N.C. State Board of Community Colleges approved Propel NC in February 2024, it called the project “groundbreaking.” It emphasized that it had received unanimous support from the presidents of all the state’s community colleges.
“Community college enrollment grew 6.2% statewide this year, nearly 16,000 additional full-time equivalent students, and much of that growth is in workforce programs,” said Sen. Michael Lee, R-New Hanover, in an email to the Business Journal. “When that many North Carolinians are choosing community college as their path into a career, the funding model needs to reward the programs that get them there.”
Overall, NCCCS requested $68.5 million in recurring funds to kick-start the new funding model, plus $24.4 million for enterprise resource planning modernization and enhancement and $6 million to establish an enrollment increase reserve.
NCCCS received $1.86 billion from the state budget in what it called a “historic investment,” as one of the largest amounts of funding it has received in recent years, according to a press release.
The breakdown in funding included $57.5 million in recurring funds for Propel NC – $39 million to move courses into higher-value sectors and $18.5 million to equalize funding for workforce continuing education and curriculum programs.
Additionally, the budget included a 3% salary increase and bonuses for all community college faculty and staff, and a $6 million enrollment-increase reserve to serve as a stabilizer for community colleges experiencing enrollment spikes, such as BCC or CFCC.
Rep. Deb Butler, D-New Hanover, while supporting Propel NC and the need for a state budget, voted against the budget.
“Budgets reflect your values, and the truth is that this one leaves North Carolinians, state workers, public school teachers, retirees – it leaves them behind, and it’s over a year late, and that’s irresponsible,” she said.
She added, “It’s one thing to say to somebody, ‘I’m going to give you a raise,’ but if you haven’t given them a raise for five years, how much of a raise is it?”
While Smith said the 3% raise was appreciated, a competitive playing field for higher education faculty requires competitive wages – especially as the cost of living has grown while Brunswick County experiences major growth.
“I think the salary increase would be the largest unmet need because, you know, folks have invested a lot for their education to work here,” he said. “They work hard, but they need to be able to sustain their families, and I would love to see a larger increase with wages.”
As NCCCS distributes funding in arrears, CFCC and BCC will likely see funding from Propel NC next year, during the upcoming academic year.
The colleges plan to use the funding to stabilize and grow existing high-demand nursing, trades and workforce programs that can be expensive to run, as well as add faculty and support staff where needed.
For Morton, as CFCC continues to grow, funding for capital projects and the buildout of a public safety center are high on his list of priorities.
“No formula is perfect on day one,” said Lee of the new funding model, “and that is exactly why the review and reporting requirements are in the law.”
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