Northampton Community College asks Easton Area SD for $1.684 million as enrollment and budget rise
Get AI-powered insights, summaries, and transcripts
Subscribe
Summary
Northampton Community College presented a proposed $85.5 million 2026–27 operating budget and asked Easton Area School District for $1,684,000 in combined operating and capital support, a $92,000 increase from the prior year, while reporting multi-year enrollment gains and a small remaining budget gap.
Northampton Community College President David Ruth and the college’s finance team presented the college’s preliminary 2026–27 budget and enrollment trends to the Easton Area School District board.
Ruth told the board NCC serves more than 20,000 students annually and has seen four consecutive years of enrollment growth. “Nearly 1 in 4 Northampton County high school graduates will, at some point, enroll in Northampton Community College,” he said, citing growth in trades and transfer programs and the college’s designation as a Hispanic-Serving Institution.
CFO Jason (identified in board materials earlier as Jason Lobaugh and later in remarks as Jason Law) outlined the numbers. The college proposes an $85,500,000 operating budget — a 3.25% increase over the current year — with $73,000,000 devoted to credit instruction and a capital budget of $8,700,000. The administration said it still anticipates about a $300,000 gap that it plans to close in the coming months through internal initiatives.
“Easton represents 21.55% of our students,” the CFO said when explaining the sponsoring-district share. He said the total request from Easton for the coming year is $1,684,000 in operating and capital support, which represents a $92,000 increase over the current year.
Ruth framed NCC’s cost and value proposition to local students: annual tuition is described on NCC slides at about $6,000, and the college emphasized transfer pathways that place associate-degree completers into junior status at partner four-year institutions.
Board members asked for clarifications about transfer pathways and the budget process; the presenters said the NCC budget will go to the college’s board of trustees in May and acknowledged the state governor’s flat budget for community colleges reduced expectations for state revenue. The district said it will vote on the local contribution as part of its normal budget process.
What’s next: the college’s president and CFO offered to provide additional materials to the board ahead of any local funding vote; the district’s board will consider the request as part of its upcoming budget deliberations.