The last part of a school year is a stressful time for students, teachers and administrators at any college. This year, that’s particularly true at Northwest College, where recent projections indicate a $2.3 million shortfall in revenue for the 2016-17 school year.

Mark Kitchen, NWC vice president for public relations, said he can’t recall a one-year revenue shortfall of this magnitude during his nearly 40 years at Northwest.

Unlike K-12 schools, which are guaranteed a specific amount of funding each year by the state of Wyoming, community colleges have no such promise. A revenue shortfall means cuts must be made to balance the NWC budget for next year.

Budget managers already are crunching the numbers. To guide that process, NWC President Stefani Hicswa has asked faculty and staff at the college for their ideas about ways to cut expenses.

“The college has asked for the shared governance piece, and my leadership style leans toward shared governance,” Hicswa told the Tribune. “This is a way ... to get their recommendations for running the college.”

Those recommendations are due to Hicswa by April 15 to give college administrators time to put the budget together for the NWC Board of Trustee’s May 9 meeting.

Meanwhile, a one-year tuition hike of $6 per credit hour for in-state students at Wyoming community colleges was approved last week by the Wyoming Community College Commission, which sets tuition at the state’s community colleges.

That increase is especially needed now; without it, next year’s shortfall at Northwest would be even worse. Kitchen said the NWC revenue projection figures already included a $5 per-credit-hour increase previously recommended by Jim Rose, executive director of the Wyoming Community College Commission.

Unfortunately, the tuition price hike will add some financial stress for people who plan to attend Northwest next year. However, the new $89 per credit hour in-state tuition rate still is a very reasonable price for the excellent, close-to-home educational opportunities the college provides, and it is far lower than the cost to attend the University of Wyoming, as well as most institutions in other states.

The Northwest College Board of Trustees also will consider a proposal next month that would increase the tuition cap at the college, from the current 12 credit hours, possibly to 15 credit hours.

Students now pay for a maximum of 12 credit hours, regardless of how many additional hours they take. Previous boards elected to keep the 12-hour cap in place, believing that it helped students keep expenses down and encouraged them to complete their associate degrees or certificates faster.

However, Lisa Watson, NWC vice president of administrative service, said statistics available now show a link between taking a large number of credits and lack of completion. In other words, students taking heavy class loads are more likely to leave school before they earn a degree or a certificate.

These days, that counts against Northwest, since the Wyoming community college funding formula has been adjusted to account for completion. Colleges with higher completion rates get more money proportionately than those with lower completion rates.

Those are a few of the challenges the college faces today. We’re thankful that the NWC community is more cohesive under Hicswa’s leadership than it has been in the past. We sympathize with college administrators, faculty, staff and students, who must pull together now to make needed changes under very difficult circumstances. Northwest College will be better prepared to weather this storm if they all work together cooperatively to make the best decisions possible for the long-term sustainability of the college.