College officials brief Columbia County panel on budget, enrollment and program plans

College staff presented a first-round budget overview to the Columbia County education subcommittee, outlining tuition and fee adjustments, projected enrollment changes and planned one-time and operational investments.

The presenter told the panel the college will hold tuition flat for students while increasing certain service fees, raising the full-time student service fee from $170 to $300. The presenter said the college’s enrollment forecasting group applied a 10% conservative reduction to prison-education headcount for the coming year “to buffer it for the prison education revenue.”

The budget presentation emphasized several revenue and cost drivers. The presenter said the college had been able to retain most students affected by a recent strike at the prisons after obtaining a permission from the state education department to extend the semester for the prison program. “We lost only a few who either moved or through various reasons needed to drop their courses,” the presenter said, and noted that keeping those students in spring terms preserved about $1 million in revenue compared with canceling the semester.

Why it matters: the college is trying to stabilize revenue after enrollment declines and…