From the issue dated January 24, 2003
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California Governor Seeks Deep Budget Cuts and Doubling of Tuition at Community CollegesBy JAMILAH EVELYNJust as they were preparing for sizable midyear cuts in state appropriations, community-college leaders in California were blindsided this month by a second dose of bad news. Gov. Gray Davis proposed doubling tuition and slashing the colleges' funds again in 2003-4 to help offset what is expected to be a $35-billion state-budget deficit. Take almost the entire undergraduate population of the University of California -- some 146,000 students -- and that is how many people will be shut out of the two-year colleges, those officials say, if the governor's proposal is approved by the Legislature this summer. The state's community colleges enroll a total of about 2.4 million students. The plan would reduce appropriations for community colleges by some $530-million, or 10.5 percent. Although the state's two other systems -- the University of California and California State University -- sustained cuts of their own, community-college leaders point out that those institutions are raising tuition and those dollars will stay on the campuses, helping to offset the cuts the governor has proposed for them. Community colleges must give their tuition dollars to the state. The net result has community-college leaders crying foul. Even Thomas J. Nussbaum, chancellor of the 108-college system, who is usually reserved in expressing opposition to the state administration, is speaking up. "We have a struggling economy and a huge need to create additional jobs, and the community colleges are the state's largest work-force providers," he told The San Diego Union-Tribune. "So what are we doing here?" Leaders of every state agency say they were prepared for significant cuts, but community-college officials say they were caught off guard by what they see as the disproportionate cutting of their budget. The proposal has sparked a vigorous political debate, with community-college leaders and others accusing the governor of making the state's neediest residents bear the brunt of the budget crunch. "Give me a fair cut and I'll take it," says Kevin M. Ramirez, president of Sierra College, who is also president of the Chief Executive Officers of the California Community Colleges. "But don't aim at students who are already marginalized by higher education. That's a classist mistake." 'Pay More, Get Less' The spending plan could actually lower appropriations for community colleges below what state law allows. It would reduce reimbursements for full-time-equivalent students to $4,026, from $4,684. The governor, who had cut community-college tuition twice during the economic boom of the late 1990s, has also proposed raising tuition to $24 per credit hour, from $11. "He's proposing to ask students to pay twice as much and get a lot less," says Scott M. Lay, director of state-budget issues for the Community College League of California, which represents presidents and boards of trustees. When community-college tuition was increased in the early 1990s, enrollment fell roughly 1 percent for every dollar that tuition rose. Estimates of how many students would either drop out or choose not to enroll because of the new tuition proposal and reductions in programs have varied from 45,000 to nearly three times that number. The governor, a Democrat, acknowledged that his proposal would keep some students out of the two-year colleges. Accordingly, he cut their state appropriations for 2003-4 to take the decline into account. Presidents of two-year colleges are calling the plan the toughest financial challenge they've ever been through. Many had already decided to suspend dual-enrollment programs, which allow high-school students to take college classes, and to eliminate most, if not all, of their summer courses after Mr. Davis last year called for a 10-percent cut in the $6.5-billion designated for community colleges in 2002-3. Now, with the governor's new budget proposal for the next academic year, community-college leaders are predicting significant reductions in their academic offerings and possible faculty and staff layoffs. At Sierra, Mr. Ramirez says, he has already eliminated 350 course sections, cut most courses that did not enroll more than 20 students, deferred capital expenditures, and imposed a hiring freeze. After the governor's announcement, the college's Board of Trustees voted to tap half of the institution's $7-million in reserves to avoid layoffs. At Cabrillo College, the president, John D. Hurd, says he has already frozen hiring, clamped down on equipment upgrades, and cut back on weekend and evening hours in the library and computer labs. If the governor's proposal goes through, he estimates, the college would lose 4 to 6 percent of its $50-million operating budget, which would mean letting go of adjunct instructors and reducing by up to 10 percent the number of classes the college offers. Protests Expected Legislators are expected to be busy hashing out the governor's midyear cuts through the end of the month. Meanwhile, community-college officials are mobilizing their constituents and calling for organized protests of next year's budget proposal at the state Capitol. Mr. Ramirez says he used his college's convocation last week to advise students and faculty members to lobby their state representatives to oppose the cuts. In the summer of 2001, Mr. Davis had proposed cutting $98-million from the community-college system's budget. He later restored about one-third of that after an aggressive lobbying campaign by the colleges. That success has officials optimistic about persuading lawmakers to restore some of their funds. State Sen. Jack Scott, a Democrat and the chairman of the education subcommittee of the Budget and Fiscal Review Committee, has promised to try to help mitigate the cuts. "But the reality of the state's budget does not bode well for us," says Mr. Hurd. "We're cautiously optimistic." The proposal needs bipartisan support to make it through the Legislature. Many Republicans have already vowed to oppose the plan because it also calls for tax increases for California's wealthiest residents. What's more, some economists say the governor has overestimated the deficit, which may help the community colleges make a case for minimizing the cuts. "Still, for every dollar we want to restore," says Mr. Lay, of the community-college league, "we have to find that money somewhere else." The Legislature is supposed to approve the annual budget by the end of June, but did not do so last year until September because of wrangling over the governor's proposals. Budget discussions are expected to last until the end of this summer as well. http://chronicle.com Section: Government & Politics Volume 49, Issue 20, Page A22
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Copyright © 2003 by The Chronicle of Higher Education