Winter enrollment up at BBCC

MOSES LAKE — During the President’s Report at the Big Bend Community College trustee meeting Thursday afternoon, the final stats for fall enrollment and stats for Winter enrollment were shared. The winter quarter had increases in enrollment across the board while fall slowed down. 

“Interestingly enough, I was comparing our winter enrollment with our fall enrollment and our winter enrollment is slightly higher than our fall enrollment,” said BBCC President Sara Thompson Tweedy. 

Winter enrollment had a 3.5% increase in overall headcount with 1.5% increase in total full-time enrollment, 0.5% increase in state FTE. At Big Bend there was an 8.9% increase in enrollment in arts and science courses, 0.6% increase in enrollment in workforce courses, and a 12.3% increase in enrollment for developmental courses. 

The only enrollment decrease in the winter quarter was in basic skills, which saw a 22.9% dip. BBCC Vice President Bryce Humphreys said this was likely due to some issues with funding that occurred during the summer. 

“The decline in Basic Skills is the result of two things. One, there was a lot of turmoil if you recall during the summer on federal funding, which is a major fund source for the (basic skills) program,” said Humphreys. “Secondly, there’s intentionality there in trying to preserve our state-funded FTE.” 

The final fall enrollment results showed an overall 8% decrease in headcount as total FTE dropped 2.4% and state enrollment dropped 5.7%. The Basic Education for Adults programs had a drop of 54.6%. 

Fall had some increases despite this as arts and science courses increased 3.8%, workforce courses increased 9.8%, and Running Start enrollment increased 8.5%. 

Thompson Tweedy said the trends shown for the Fall and Winter quarters in the 2025-26 school year are not uncommon for Big Bend as enrollment in the Fall tends to dip as students are typically tied up with the harvest season during that time. Once the harvest is over, students return to school for the winter and spring quarters. 

“My background is in Strategic-Enrollment Management for college, and this was not a thing on the east coast, usually you’re fall enrollment would be higher, your winter enrollment would be lower and your spring enrollment would maybe be a little bit lower than your winter,” she said. “But we had a good stabilizing winter enrollment which we were very grateful for.”