Sunday, April 17, 2011

Riverside Press Enterprise: Community Colleges Facing Big Cuts

Community college classes could face big cuts
12:35 AM PDT on Sunday, April 17, 2011
By DAYNA STRAEHLEY
The Riverside Press-Enterprise
 

Mention state budget cuts, and San Bernardino Valley College student Julia Fleetwood rolls her eyes.
Under an all-cuts budget, being considered by Gov. Jerry Brown to close a $26.6 billion state budget gap, community colleges project they may have to cut about 20 percent of their classes. In the San Bernardino Community College District, about 800 classes would be cut from the 3,500 classes offered per semester, Interim Chancellor Bruce Baron said earlier this month.

Fleetwood, a 32-year-old single mother of three, said she expects to be hit particularly hard. Current students get priority for classes and she has to transfer to Victor Valley College, "so there's no guarantee I'll even get classes," she said.

She said she recently moved from Redlands to Victorville for economic reasons and spends $150 a week for gas to get to San Bernardino Valley College. Fleetwood said she has three semesters to go until she can transfer to a university to earn a degree in social work.

"I have no idea what I'm going to do," Fleetwood said. "I just had this conversation with my mom."

Many students say that classes they want already fill up too quickly.

Robert Moorer, 21, of Highland, said he's in his third semester at Valley College and still hasn't been able to get an English class needed for an associate of arts degree. He said he saw 10 other students turned away when his current math class began this term.

Valley College student Marina Cornejo, 19, of Colton, said she wants to transfer to Riverside City College, but her friends there have trouble getting classes, too.

Rick Hogrefe, dean of arts and sciences for Crafton Hills College in Yucaipa, teaches communications studies. He said he and other faculty are as frustrated as students.

"You see them every day," Hogrefe said about students. "You know their success stories."

If 16 to 20 percent of classes are cut, he said instructors are most worried about adults returning to prepare for new careers.

The college has only three fulltime counselors for 5,000 students giving academic and career advice as well as any personal counseling that students may need, Hogrefe said.

Although Inland college districts said they had no plans to lay off full-time faculty or staff, district spokesmen said they will have to reduce some student services and course offerings. Colleges rely on a lot of part-time instructors hired for a semester at a time with no guarantee of continued employment.

Under the current budget proposal, San Bernardino Community College District will lose about $6 million, offset by $1.5 million in increased student fees, Baron said.

The situation is similar throughout California.

The 112 community college campuses statewide would lose $800 million, denying access to more than 400,000 students, almost as many as those enrolled in the entire Cal State University system, according to a news release from the California Community Colleges system.

Brown's office said the state Legislative Analyst's Office put the sum at $585 million, which the governor called devastating.

California's community colleges had almost 2.76 million students in 2009-10, according the Community College League of California. The colleges educate most police officers, firefighters and nurses, as well as students preparing to transfer to four-year universities.

The state Legislative Analyst's Office recommends that community colleges raise fees from $26 per unit to $65 per unit, Baron said. Last month, Brown signed legislation to raise fees to $36 a unit.

Brown came to Riverside last week to warn about massive cuts to education and other programs if tax extensions are not approved. The state last month approved about $11 billion in cuts to close a $26.6 billion shortfall through June 2012.

He had proposed tax extensions to cover about half of the shortfall, but the deadline is passed to place them on the ballot before they expire June 30. If those extensions are not approved, Brown said he would have to propose an all-cuts budget in May.

RIVERSIDE

Riverside Community College District officials haven't figured out yet what the all-cuts state budget will mean at their three campuses, district spokesman Jim Parsons said last week.

Their earlier budget scenarios were based on the expectation that the governor would be able to extend several temporary tax increases to generate $12.5 billion for the state.

Under that budget scenario, Riverside district officials expected an $18.4 million budget gap, a projection that assumed there would be some reductions in state funding as well as rising costs for utilities and employee benefits, Parsons said.

"We were looking at reducing 650 sections districtwide over the four terms of the 2011-12 academic year -- about a 9.5 percent reduction," Parsons said in an email. The Riverside district offered 6,796 sections of classes across summer, fall, winter and spring terms at three campuses, he said.

Preliminary projections range from $12 million to $19 million in cuts to the Riverside district if the all-cuts budget is adopted, according to the Community College League.

Most funding for community colleges comes from the state. Each college retains 20 percent of student registration fees, or $5.20 per credit unit now, Parsons said. The rest goes back to a statewide fund.

The state funding levels vary somewhat between districts, so the percentage of the budget coming from student fees varies slightly as well. In the San Bernardino district, about 4 percent of the budget comes from student registration fees.

MT. SAN JACINTO

In the Mt. San Jacinto College District, the net reduction would range from $4.6 million to $7.1 million under an all-cuts budget. The district extends from Banning and Beaumont south through San Jacinto and Temecula.

The projections include the loss of funding for 2,652 to 4,102 students, said district spokeswoman Karin Marriott.

"We're trying to make sure the budget reductions have the least impact on students and instruction as possible," Marriott said.

To save money elsewhere, the district may offer early retirement incentives to reduce payroll and offer voluntary furlough days.

Other steps include closing district facilities on Fridays in the summer, and compressing the workweek to close Friday afternoons the rest of the year to save utilities, she said.

The projected reductions follow budget cuts that colleges have made every year since 2008 and are likely to continue at least a few more years, Marriott said.

POOR STUDENTS

Raising fees hurts the students who need community colleges the most, said Baron of the San Bernardino Community College District. Many Inland community college students and their families live below the poverty level, he said.

"This is the one opportunity they've got to get some job skills and hopefully get their lives on track," Baron said.

A recent Pearson Foundation Community College Student Survey found that 47 percent of students in the California system have been unable to enroll in needed courses because they were full. This compares to just 28 percent of students across the nation who said they experienced the same trouble, according to the California Community Colleges system.

"It's not only the students who are hurt by the continued erosion of funding for higher education," state

Chancellor Jack Scott said in a news release. "The state's future economy is damaged, too. If just 2 percent more of California's population earned an associate degree and 1 percent more earned a bachelor's degree, the state's economy would grow by $20 billion."

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