Where is the budget hitting us the hardest? For just $20 a unit, community colleges were once a reasonably priced alternative to a university.
However, with the recent state budget cuts that impacted all colleges throughout California, higher eduaction just got a bit pricier.
Fees have increased by 30 percent in the past year, going from $20 to $26 per unit. The overall EC budget since 2008-2009 was cut by $2.3 million.
What this means to students is that being enrolled full-time went from costing $240 to $312. This amounts to the same you would spend if you were paying for an extra three units at the former price.
However, we must acknowledge that this increase could have been worse as we look at other colleges across the country. For example, colleges in states like Arizona.
Phoenix, Arizona’s Maricopa County resident tuition fees are $71 per credit hour, meaning a full-time student would be paying $852. The per unit tuition fee in Portland is $74, while it’s $41 in Dallas. All things considered, then, spending $26 a unit seems reasonable.
Compared to other California colleges, EC is also faring better when it comes to its budget.
Many community colleges have been forced to cut sports programs, such as L.A. City College, where every sports program, except women’s volleyball, was cut.
President Dr. Thomas Fallo and the college’s administrators have done an excellent job of preserving EC’s budget as much as possible, allowing for students to continue getting their education.
Thanks to fiscally conservative spending and holding the budget line here, there is a fairly large reserve to function on until the California economy evens out.
Despite the number of classes that were cut, the college is still in fairly decent shape, with most of its programs intact and many of its classes still being offered.
President Barack Obama has earmarked $10 billion in federal stimulous money for community colleges, but where are we left once that one-time fund runs out? We’re back where we started, or possibly even worse off.
Students who are being depended on as the future of this country and are the ones to bring us out of a financial crisis may not even be able to get the education they need to do so.
Many students are either working, or reliant upon financial aid in order to afford an education, with more being laid off and financial aid being threatened. For all of these reasons, charging more per unit wouldn’t be beneficial.
If tuition continues to increase, students who work to pay for their classes would have to work more hours. This would also mean less time for classes, which would mean students taking fewer units. For those on financial aid, fee waivers have been increased in response to the $6 increase per unit, which is great, but it means that the government is paying more. Community college students shouldn’t be forced to pay for the mistakes of the government.
Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger and the California Legislature are taking the wrong approach to solving the budget crisis. Charging community college students more per unit will ultimately be more detrimental because it would ultimately hurt students, the leaders of tomorrow.
The bottom line is while our tuition fees are not that much compared to the fees charged in neighboring states and our college is not suffering that severely due to the state fiscal crisis, the state must solve its budget problems before things get worse.
-See related article in the Union News section
