BC3 Holly Mead/ Special to the Butler Eagle

At a time when colleges and universities face concerns and uncertainty, Butler County Community College leaders have expressed confidence in the school’s footing as the 2025-26 academic year comes to a close.

BC3 is ending the current year with year-over-year increases for student fees and credit tuition received, putting itself in an improved financial picture from years past.

At BC3’s commencement Wednesday, May 13, the college had a graduating class of 488 students, the most since 2022. This included 106 registered nursing graduates and over 30 graduates of an early childhood education associate degree program.

“It’s so wonderful, the direction of the college,” said Megan Coval, BC3’s president. “We’ve been working really hard over the past couple of years to make some changes to position the college for a strong and sustainable future while keeping in mind having students at the forefront and making sure we’re providing a quality, accessible education for them.”

The positive financial picture expressed by officials includes keeping costs under control. The college is down by about $500,000 in salary expenses compared to last year, according to budget summaries from this month’s board of trustees meeting.

For year to date, BC3 has seen $30.485 million in revenues and only $22.56 million in expenditures, according to its fund budget summary.

“Year over year, we’re up. We’re up in student fees by $262,000,” said Jake Friel, vice president of administration and finance. “We’re up in credit tuition too.”

Josh Novak, the college’s vice president of student affairs and enrollment management, said it is down around 6% in traditional credit enrollment, but a lot of that ground is made up with dual credit enrollment.

He also said the number of new students for summer enrollment is up.

“I’m just delighted to see the improvements in the finances and enrollment and I’m very pleased with everything,” Coval said. “We still have work in both of those areas that we want to do and look forward to doing, but seeing an improvement is certainly nice.”

Mikayla Moretti, executive director of the education foundation, said May 13 the foundation is offering a record 165 scholarships for the 2026-27 year. The 60th anniversary campaign and BC3 future fund has raised $1.699 million as of the May 13 board meeting.

The enrollment numbers, which buck trends of larger declines in Pennsylvania and other states, also show the way the college is impacting people throughout the community. The graduating class included students ages 17 to 63.

“It’s one of my favorite things about community colleges, and about BC3 in particular,” Coval said. “We serve a multi-generational population. Our graduates this year are ages 17 to 63, but any given day there’s 3-year-olds on campus at our childcare center, and I’m certain there are individuals more senior than 63 as well. I think that is our goal. It is everyone’s community college.”