If your wallet was not empty by the beginning of this semester, it may be by the beginning of fall.
To combat another possible fee increase, the rising cost of textbooks and further decreased funding for the college, members of the Associated Student Organization will be talking with state legislators Tuesday in Sacramento.
ASO delegates include Phillip Gomez, ASO president, Bryce Matson, student trustee, and student members.
“We will try to get more information on the possibility of the fee increase,” Gomez said.
If a bill for the increase is passed, there will be another $7-per-unit fee added to the existing tuition, costing students $33 a unit.
“The governor did not impose a fee increase, but the legislature’s financial advisers are reconsidering it,” Gomez said.
The rising cost of textbooks is another issue ASO has been lobbying for since last semester.
“Publishers’ practices: That’s where we are trying to hit. Not the bookstore, not the faculty, not the college administrations. The publishers are the ones constantly coming out with new editions and constantly coming out with supplements,” Matson said.
The goal of ASO is to get legislature involved with publisher’s practices and question the need to create a new edition every year.
“In some disciplines, the textbooks do not need to change,” Matson said.
Proposition 98, which involves funding for K-14 grades, is also on the agenda; although EC should be receiving 11 percent of its funding, it is only receiving 9 percent.
Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger said that every community college should get its fair share, though some do not.
“We will ask if we could please be funded our full amount, what we are worth, or what we deserve,” Matson said.
This will allow EC to hire more instructors and create more class sections to be offered.
Ongoing lobbying for issues such as grants and scholarships will be brought up to state legislators as well.
“We will lobby for other resources for students to get further funding for education,” Gomez said.
“(Legislators) constantly get bombarded with administrators. But they want to hear from the students, the people who are actually sitting in the classrooms,” Matson said.
