Alamance Community College officials are projecting that ACC will see an increase in the state-funded portion of its annual budget due to a new funding methodology that ties state funding for community colleges to local and regional demand for trained workers.
The new methodology, Propel NC, allocates state funding to community colleges based on projected job growth within several broad categories: healthcare; technology; and skilled trades, according to the North Carolina Community Colleges System (NCCCS).
Previously, state funding was based primarily on each community college’s full-time equivalent (FTE) enrollment, or the number of students enrolled in at least 16 credit hours of instruction for each semester, and an average of FTE for the two previous fiscal years.
“We’re still doing an analysis, but it appears it’s going to be advantageous,” ACC president Dr. Ken Ingle said in an interview with The Alamance News prior to the trustees’ latest meeting Monday night.
ACC received approximately $42.6 million in state funding for instruction, student support and services, customized industry support, operations, and equipment for the current 2026-27 fiscal year, representing an increase of $4.2 million (10.8 percent) in state funding from the previous year.
By comparison, ACC received $38.4 million in state funding for the 2025-26 fiscal year.
ACC’s overall budget, which is comprised of state and county funding, along with federal financial aid, totals $110.1 million for the 2026-27 fiscal year, an increase of $18.2 million (19.8 percent) from last year’s overall budget of $91.9 million, based on budget documents presented to the community college’s board of trustees.
Ingle said in the interview that, while FTE is still factored into state appropriations for community colleges, state funding is now primarily targeted to “workforce sector alignment.”
This marks the first fiscal year that state funding for community colleges has been aligned to demands of local and regional labor markets, as outlined by Propel NC, according to the NCCCS. The previous funding methodology was created in 2010 and updated in 2013, according to the community colleges system. The State Board of Community Colleges adopted Propel NC in October 2023.
At the time, Tom Looney, chairman of the State Board of Community Colleges, said, “Propel NC is a dynamic and responsive change that allows us to meet the evolving needs of employers and get the next generation of workers ready for high-demand, good-paying jobs.”
A June 2026 report from the N.C. Chamber Foundation showed that that the state’s labor force had grown by one-tenth of 1 percent between 2024 and 2026, a “slowdown…warning that the state cannot assume workforce growth will automatically keep pace with economic growth.” The labor force within the Burlington Metropolitan Statistical Area (MSA) declined by 1.9 percent during that two-year period, while that for other metropolitan areas, such as Wilmington, increased by 3.5 percent between 2024 and 2026.
The N.C. Chamber Foundation ultimately concluded that “North Carolina’s workforce strategy needs to be regional” and needs to be tied to “advanced manufacturing, life sciences, healthcare, education, logistics, defense, energy, and other” fields to meet employment demand and remain competitive with other states, according to its June 2026 analysis.
In Alamance County, “probably the three biggest areas” where ACC officials continue to see sustained job growth include: health sciences (particularly nurses and Certified Nursing Assistants); career/technical programs such as agriculture and skilled trades; and fields such as welding and mechatronics, Ingle said Monday.
ACC still working to develop regional job training hub
Meanwhile, ACC officials and their counterparts at Guilford Technical Community College and Randolph Community College are also hoping to persuade other nearby community colleges to join in establishing a regional training hub – the Triad East Center for Advanced Technology (TECAT) – that ACC’s trustee board had approved in concept several years ago.
One potential partner that ACC officials have approached is Durham Technical Community College, Ingle told the newspaper Monday night. “That helps us reduce barriers to entry,” enabling ACC to get a foothold in newer, more expensive programs that have strong job growth projections, he said.
TECAT would focus on training workers for careers in fields such as renewable energy like the Toyota EV battery plant in Liberty. Then-ACC president Dr. Algie Gatewood persuaded the trustees to endorse TECAT during the spring of 2023; though no formal vote was taken, the trustees enthusiastically gave a thumbs-up as a show of their support for the regional facility.
The General Assembly subsequently earmarked $750,000 in the previous, biennial state budget passed in September 2023 to develop TECAT in collaboration the community colleges in Guilford and Randolph counties. No additional funding is allocated for TECAT in the new state budget that passed in July.
More recently, in June 2025, ACC officials issued a Request for Proposals (RFP), seeking consultants to develop the facility, as well as a ranked list of positions and skills needed by industry and identification of possible locations for TECAT, according to the RFP that the community college issued through the state’s Electronic Vendor Portal. That solicitation remained open as of press time.
ACC officials are talking with Durham Tech and other community college officials about “a number of programs, such as biotech, healthcare, a little bit of sustainable agriculture, and [agribusiness],” said Dr. Justin Snyder, the community college’s senior vice president of student learning & workforce development.
“Ag is a huge growth opportunity,” Ingle said in the interview.
With gross annual revenue of $100 billion and one out of every five new jobs created, agriculture is the “number-one sector in the state,” Snyder told the newspaper Monday night, citing data that he attributed to the North Carolina Chamber. “It touches so much of what we do,” he said.
“We’ve been able to expand what we are doing,” Snyder added, through initiatives such as the shift from 16-week to eight-week course terms that took effect at the beginning of this year, enabling ACC students to complete a degree or a professional certificate faster.
Enrollment at ACC continuing to grow
Snyder told ACC’s trustees earlier this year that “ACCelerate in 8” had yielded a 15.5 percent increase in enrollment in curriculum programs (those which culminate with a degree or certificate) for the spring 2026 term from that for the spring of 2025.
Snyder told the trustees later Monday night that, this summer, ACC experienced an increase of about 9 percent in the number of students served and FTE enrollment from that for the summer of 2025. So far this fall, FTE enrollment for the first eight-week term appears to have increased by about 10 percent from the same point last year, he said.
“What I’m really proud of is [where] we are at the economic pipeline, but also the business end,” Ingle said, adding that ACC will continue to work to “make sure those [job] opportunities are going to be available to our students five and 10 years down the road.”
