Beaufort County Community College’s full-time equivalent numbers are tentatively on the path to stabilization.

In a May 23 report, which the BCCC Board of Trustees discussed at its meeting this week, spring FTE numbers decreased from 545.59 students in spring 2016, to a preliminary total of 503.91 in spring 2017. The decline is substantially lower than the previous year, when FTE fell from 757.64 in spring 2015.

Full-time equivalency details the number of students who are enrolled in at least 16 credit hours for two semesters of curriculum courses at the college.

“BCCC is not immune to the trends that other colleges are facing with drops in enrollment at the national, regional and state level. Many colleges have faced even larger drops in FTE than we have experienced,” said Jay Sullivan, vice president of research and institutional effectiveness.

After dropping total curriculum FTE (spring, summer and fall) by 413.37 from 2015 to 2016, this year’s total also signaled a step toward stabilization — falling by approximately 78 (also preliminary data), according to the report.

Over the past couple of years, BCCC has struggled to maintain FTE numbers, after discontinuing the Federal Direct Loan Program in 2015 and experiencing a drop in overall service-area population and enrollment. Officials have referred to these lower numbers as the college’s “new normal.”

A large portion of state funding is dependent upon FTE numbers from the past two years, so the decline has forced major budget cuts and some personnel loss. In April, BCCC announced another impending budget slash of $1.1 million for fiscal year 2017-18.

“We are always concerned about having adequate resources to provide training, education and workforce development,” Sullivan said.

And BCCC is fighting back.

To combat more cuts, the college is focusing its efforts on recruiting, including a new push for high school students to take courses, and raising awareness for other avenues of financial aid, according to Sullivan.

“The success of these recruitment efforts is reflected in the enrollment and FTE for summer 2017 and fall 2017, both of which are stronger than they have been any time since 2014,” he said.

Sullivan continued, “The vast majority of our students will qualify for financial aid in the form of Pell Grants, scholarships, childcare aid and work-study. These forms of financial aid are better than loans because they do not need to be repaid. We regularly encounter students who wrongly believe that when BCCC discontinued student loans, that we discontinued all student aid.”

Sullivan said the college remains hopeful for the upcoming fiscal year, and is working to find funds from other sources. BCCC requested an increase in capital funding from the Beaufort County Board of Commissioners for FY 2017-18.

“We have made adjustments to our budget to manage these cuts,” he said. “State funding, while a significant portion of our budget, is not our only funding stream. We rely on county funding, grants and the NC Connect Bond for additional funding.”