October 17, 2025

It’s time to share our enrollment and fiscal forecast now that fall enrollment has passed its 10th day census. Here we go…

Bottom line: This year (2025-2026) looks stable; next year (2026-2027) will need some serious thought.

For this year’s enrollment, we:

• Recorded a 15% increase in graduated high school (“state”) students. That’s the biggest increase we have ever seen in this population!
• Recorded a 15% increase in Running Start (“still in high school”) students. This brings our total to almost 1100, the most we’ve ever enrolled!
• Saw a 34% increase in Basic Ed for Adults. That’s also our biggest recorded increase ever! This is largely due to our Redmond Center presence.
• Unfortunately, saw a 33% decrease in international students. This was primarily due to visa policy restriction from the State Department and countries being put on the travel ban list from the White House. . This brings our total international population to 139 students. Our enrollment goal is to have about 10% of our population be from countries outside the United States. This number helps provide our domestic students with the opportunity to experience global culture right here at home. It also helps the college maintain many essential services. (If you have any suggestion on potential collaborative partnerships internationally, please let us know.)

How does this translate to our fiscal stability?

• Given the calculated tuition based on the above, this is a $360,000 deficit.
• Between last May and today, the State Board also reduced our allocation by $170,000. This disbursement follows a new formula based on actual enrollment and, as a smaller college, we will receive less.
• That’s a total 25-26 deficit of $530,000. We budgeted for a deficit of $200,000.

Last year, when faced with an initial $1M shortfall, the campus pulled together through diligent spending and holding back on a few replacement positions to help make up that ground. We broke even last year. It is our intent to break even this year through using that same fiscal discipline. Stay tuned for cost-saving measures and please be patient as we work towards closing the gap for this year.

Next year (academic year 26-27) brings some strong headwinds.

• We must forecast the number of international students and prepare for potential further decline.
• The state will continue to hold back $170,000 from our budget each year for the next 6 years as changes in the state’s allocation model take effect.
• We have agreed to move forward with multiple faculty hires. While this helps enrollment, it also comes at a cost which will need to be factored in.
• And, we will have our on-going operational increases, like a 30% increase in energy cost over the last two years and increases in our agreements with UW-Bothell and UW-Libraries.

Next year will be tight even with enrollment increases like this year. We’ll have draft projections ready for Budget Council in January and will hit the ground running when we begin those meetings.

Until then, we continue to do good work and will continue to operate with fiscal diligence.

Shoutouts

Much appreciation goes out to Dr. Victor Begay for coordinating Monday’s efforts for Indigenous People’s Day. While I could only attend the opening, I watched drumming and dancing from my office, was told by the City of Bothell and Northshore School District how happy they were by this event, and took pride in the work of those who helped honor our native ancestors. Thanks for representing Cascadia so well.

Shoutouts can be sent to FLShoutout@cascadia.edu.

Have a great weekend.