Sampson Community College has once again broken records for its enrollment, with 1,846 students for the spring semester, which began earlier this month.
Dean of Enrollment Dr. Marvin Rondon shared the latest numbers with the college’s Board of Trustees at the regular monthly meeting on Tuesday night.
The record numbers for Spring 2026 follow a trend that was started last year. For the Fall 2025 semester, SCC had 1,852 students enrolled, a gain of 6 percent over the previous year.
A second spring semester will start in March, Dr. Rondon explained, and he said he expects the enrollment numbers to remain steady or even increase. Those numbers will be reported in mid-March.
“We have been stable for the last three years,” he said.
Amanda Bradshaw, vice president of workforce development and continuing education, stated that the numbers the college is seeing for spring are actually better than she thought they would be, compared with the fall semester.
She mentioned that many Haitian students are expected to leave the college, due to the expiration of their visas in February. “It’ll be interesting to see after the February mark, what’s going to happen with those particular students,” Bradshaw stated.
She also talked about the recent grouping of curriculum students with continuing education students, which she said has been a positive thing. “Having large classes really benefits to a certain extent,” Bradshaw said.
Blair Hairr, vice president of academic and student affairs, added that since curriculum and continuing education classes have been augmented, it’s “a learning curve” for the staff, but overall has been a good thing.
“I’ve had to tell my team, I don’t care which side of the house gets the credit, curriculum or ConEd,” she explained. “If the class fits 20, I want 22. It it’s 15 ConEd students and you’re a curriculum instructor, it doesn’t matter. The goal is, you get 20 students receiving instruction. That’s a hard shift, but … we’ve addressed a lot of low-hanging fruit across campus. Right now, these dashboards don’t really co-mingle, so for us to really analyze the health of our programs, now that we’re stacking both efforts, that will require a lot more manual labor to really see the health of it across campus.”
Hairr added that the change has “created a lot of good partnerships” among staff.
“It really gets rid of a lot of that territorial [attitude],” Board of Trustees Chair Larinda Haight said.
Back to enrollment numbers, Dr. Rondon reported that College and Career Promise (CCP) program has 660 students this semester, which is an increase of 15 students from 2025. He said he expects that number to stay around 600-700 in the future.
Full-time equivalents (FTEs) number about 1,600, Rondon reported.
Arguably more important is the college’s success rate, which is the number of students making grades of A, B or C. “We went from 72 percent in 2020,” he shared. “Now we are up to 81 percent success rate, where students are completing with As, Bs or Cs.”
Comparably, other colleges usually have a success rate in the 60-percent range, Rondon said.
“It’s not only growth, it’s improvement,” he added. “Students are getting good grades, and they’re completing.”
SCC graduates about 350 students a year, he concluded, a number he expects to see grow.
Read more about the Jan. 13 meeting of the Board of Trustees in Tuesday’s e-edition, available online at clintonnc.com.