CCC Office of the President - Seth Carter

Greetings from Colby Community College.

We hope everyone is doing well. Before we begin the article, we want to wish everyone a Merry Christmas and a very happy holiday season. The fall 2025 semester is over, and it went by so quickly. It was a great, very productive semester. As always, thank you for your continued support and efforts to make Northwest Kansas a special place.

When looking at enrollment, as of Dec. 19, 2025, Colby Community College (CCC) was up 9.3% for the fall semester (1,378 credit hours). This marks the College’s highest credit hour production in the last ten years. Additionally, as of Dec. 19, the spring semester was 33.9% ahead of last year's pace. Last spring, the College saw an increase of nearly 500-credit-hours. We do not anticipate that growth is sustainable, but it indicates that it will be a great spring semester.

The College has consistently seen enrollment gains over the last decade, and we consider ourselves extremely blessed to witness them. However, this is not the normal trend across the sector. To me, this is an absolute testament to our incredible community, employees, the Board of Trustees, and the outstanding students we serve.

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The Colby Commitment Scholarship is still active and is currently slated to run through the spring of 2026. The Colby Commitment is a scholarship program that Colby Community College provides to high school students in the College’s 14-county service area who qualify for free and reduced lunches, as well as all high school students who reside in or whose immediate family (parent/legal guardian) owns property in Thomas County, Kansas. This Scholarship covers tuition, fees, and textbooks. There are no hidden fees. Students from the following counties are eligible for reduced tuition, fees, and books at $50 per credit hour: Cheyenne, Rawlins, Decatur, Norton, Phillips, Sherman, Sheridan, Graham, Rooks, Wallace, Logan, Gove, and Trego. This scholarship aims to remove educational barriers and provide all students with an equal opportunity to access a high-quality college education.

The College and the Endowment are still continuing our work on the 60 for 60 campaign. The goal of the project was to establish 60 new endowed scholarships in celebration of our 60th anniversary and to help reduce barriers to make obtaining an associate degree a realistic possibility. As of Dec. 19, 2025, the College is proud to announce that 138 new endowed scholarships have been established or pledged, surpassing the original goal by more than 130%.

Colby Community College (CCC) has partnered with Fort Hays State University (FHSU) to offer a new $2,000 scholarship for community college transfer students. What makes it unique is that the President selects the recipients (up to two). This is the first scholarship of this type in the state of Kansas. The program aims to strengthen partnerships between CCC and FHSU while increasing access to an affordable higher education.

Colby Community College is still in the running to be one of the top community and technical colleges in the nation. Currently, the College has made the initial cut of being in the top 200 (there are approximately 1,400 U.S. community/technical colleges). To be considered, the College had to submit data and write a narrative. Both have been completed, but we will not know if we advanced in the process until much later in 2026.

A vendor was selected to build the new 80-bed dormitory and maintenance shed. This project will allow the College to offer a unique living arrangement, enabling students to cook in their dormitory. It will provide a more private, modernized living experience. It will also future-proof the College’s housing needs. The rooms will be set up as single units but can be doubled, and the capacity could easily increase to around 120 students. The project will be funded from the College’s financial reserves, and we will not be utilizing a bond issuance or fundraising. As stated before, we are extremely cognizant and grateful for how philanthropic our community is, but the College is also aware that many meaningful projects are underway, and we do not want to detract from or distract from their creation.

Colby Community College has formally signed the Western Kansas Consortium Memorandum of Agreement. The agreement is a formal partnership among Colby Community College, Dodge City Community College, Garden City Community College, and Seward County Community College that creates a flexible framework for voluntary collaboration to better serve students and communities across Kansas. It allows the institutions to explore shared use of faculty, resources, purchasing power, equipment, and academic programs when doing so is practical and mutually beneficial, while preserving each college’s independence. The agreement is important because it promotes efficiency, reduces resource duplication, and expands educational opportunities without forcing participation. By encouraging cooperation rather than competition, the agreement strengthens regional higher education and supports long-term sustainability for all participating colleges.

My family and I are so grateful to have completed over a decade at Colby Community College. Thank you for everything you do. We want to wish everyone a happy holiday season and a Merry Christmas. This is a time to spend with loved ones and reflect on our many blessings. As always, if you have any questions or concerns, please feel free to contact me. Please stop by if you have not been on campus lately; we would love to see you.

Respectfully,

Seth Macon Carter

President, Colby Community College

by Derek White