BUTLER TWP — Butler County Community College is offsetting decreased student enrollment this year by trimming expenses and embracing student participation in its Marcellus Shale industry-related training.

Through Sept. 17, enrollment in traditional courses is down by 9 percent from the same date last year, according to Jim Hrabosky, BC3’s vice president of administration and finance.

BC3 has 3,711 full and part-time students, taking 37,150 credits.

Adjusting to include 11 courses that are not yet accounted for in the college’s computer system adds 130 students who are taking 3,090 credits.

That would mean the 2012 enrollment by student count is down by 7.56 percent, and enrollment by credits is down 9.17 percent.

Hrabosky said the decreased enrollment, combined with a reduction in the college’s state funding appropriation, has contributed to an unexpected drop in tuition revenues.

The college, based on enrollment trends which began last year, planned in advance for the revenue shortcomings by allowing several unfilled positions to remain open, refraining from hiring part-time staff normally needed to meet the needs of full enrollment and foregoing certain contracted services.

“That was by design and by action,” Hrabosky said.

The college also was helped by Mother Nature last year, as a meek winter led to lower utility bills.

While the decline in traditional enrollment is troubling, BC3 President Nick Neupauer indicated that the reasons for the decline are out of BC3’s control, and that enrollment in BC3’s nontraditional courses is encouraging.

“(The drop in enrollment) is a dip in public higher education in general in the Commonwealth,” Neupauer said.

He said BC3 still is attracting about 23 percent of the graduating high school seniors in Butler County, but those graduating classes are smaller.

Also, because of the new health care mandates that allow younger people to stay on their parents’ health care plans longer without being students, there is less pressure for them to enroll right away in college after high school.

Finally, Neupauer said good-paying jobs in the Marcellus Shale gas industry are available with just a few weeks of specialized training in lieu of traditional two or four-year degrees.

“The good news for us is we are a leader in the Commonwealth in providing that training,” he said.

Indeed, BC3 filled roustabout classes to learn to be an oil rig laborer in February, April, June and August, with about 40 students completing the course and more than 75 percent of them retaining or finding new work in the industry, Neupauer said.