[Click photo to enlarge. Photo by Dean Musgrove/Staff Photographer/LA Daily News]
Some of the 250 Los Angeles Vallege college students respond to a speakers question during a noon time campus rally on Thursday, Nov. 5, 2009, about growing concerns over the budget crisis. (Dean Musgrove/Staff Photographer/LA Daily News)
Hammered by state budget cuts, Los Angeles community colleges are being forced to jettison up to one-third of their classes this year even as campuses swell with laid-off workers from the recession.
Despite some $2.2 billion in voter-approved construction and modernization projects, the nine campuses in the Los Angeles Community College District must cut hundreds of classes this spring.
The reductions mean students must wait longer to get the classes they need in order to graduate from the two-year community colleges or transfer to a four-year school.
"It bites," Ryan Grella, 19, of Sylmar, a chemistry major at Valley College who couldn't get his required courses, said during a demonstration held this week to protest the state budget cuts. "I could have been applying for transfers right now.
"Instead, I'm stuck here another year."
Faced with a $48 million cut in state funding, the LACCD was forced to scrap half of its summer classes and up to 9 percent of its offerings in the fall. Winter inter-session courses are also expected to be cut by half or eliminated altogether.
But the major impact may be this spring, when classes will likely vanish by the hundreds, leaving thousands more students — and instructors — in the lurch.
"It's a nightmare, an absolute budgetary nightmare," said Art Gillis, director of the Program for Accelerated College Education at Pierce College in Woodland Hills. "Spring is one thing, but our big worry is what other classes will be cut in the next 12 months.
"We cannot fulfill our mission — to educate everyone who applies."
What worries college administrators are the thousands of students slated to be turned away by four-year universities.
California State University Northridge, which also has fewer and larger classes this year because of a $41 million budget reduction, plans to shed 2,800 students next year.
Those students are expected to line up at community colleges already ballooning from a record number of students — many of them older students laid off during the recession — seeking job training, certificates or degrees.
This year saw a nearly 5 percent rise in enrollment in community colleges across the state, including campuses throughout Los Angeles, where the average class size has swelled to 40 students.
Enrollment could have jumped
But if the college classes hadn't been eliminated, local administrators say enrollment would have jumped by 10 percent instead.
"We're maximizing all available space in the classrooms," said Tyree Wieder, interim chancellor for the Los Angeles Community College District and the former president of Valley College. "We're all suffering reduction in services. We're told in the next two years, we may see some turnaround, but we don't know for sure."
"We're all working together to weather the storm."
As community college campuses grow - with fuller classes in new buildings made possible by $6 billion in taxpayer-approved bonds — their services to students will be fewer.
That means less access to faculty and counselors. Fewer campus services. Higher student fees. More crowded classrooms. And more student hurdles getting the classes they need to graduate.
"The people in the San Fernando Valley have all benefited from having a quality higher education system," said Patrick McCallum, a legislative advocate for the California Community College District. "And we are now dismantling what made California great."
This spring, community colleges across the Valley will offer 5 percent to 10 percent fewer classes than a year earlier. Mission College in Sylmar will cut 51 class sections, Valley College in Valley Glen will cut 160 sections and Pierce College in Woodland Hills will cut another 225.
Administrators say they are trying to preserve core courses required for student graduations or university transfers.
"We're taking a really hard hit," said Nabil Abu-Ghazaleh, vice president of academic affairs at Pierce College, which has reduced course offerings by 17 percent. "We're trying to minimize the damage.
"The idea is to concentrate on what students need."
At Mission College, administrators are cutting its five-week winter session of 66 classes. The classes are among nearly 200 class sections eliminated this year.
"Those specific classes for the completion of a degree, or a transfer to another university, may not be available," Alma Johnson-Hawkins, its vice president of academic affairs, said. "It's a struggle."
At Valley College, class sections are being whittled 30 percent this year because of a $7 million cut to its budget. But while last year's classes packed 34 students, this year's now push 40.
"I'm looking into my crystal ball and seeing more people losing their homes, more people losing their jobs, more people who are coming to us for opportunities to learn - and they're not here, because California has cut the budget," Sandra Mayo, its vice president of academic affairs, said.
"The money is not there. We still need to serve the people. I don't know what to do."
Protesting the budget squeeze
On the Valley College quad this week, about 250 students held a town hall meeting. Wielding such banners as "Bail us out," and "Why us?", they protested the budget squeeze on services.
Students complained that during the 1980s, 17 percent of state money was spent on higher education and 3 percent on prison. Today, it's 9 percent to universities and 10 percent on convicts.
Assemblyman Mike Feuer, D-Los Angeles, was expected to answer questions but didn't show after an all-night legislative session.
Students said they felt trapped, their dreams of graduating put on hold.
Nancy Pineda has studied at Valley College two years and had hoped to transfer to the University of California, majoring in Chicano studies and French.
But the political science class she needed to take this summer was canceled, and an English class this semester was full.
"I'm very worried," said Pineda, 19, of North Hollywood, the only member of her family to attend college. "I'm at my last year at Valley College. I need five classes to transfer out.
"If I don't finish the classes in the spring, the University of California won't take me."
Mission College
Enrollment: 10,000
Spring semester classes cut: 51
School-year classes cut: 15 percent
Pierce College
Enrollment: 24,000
Spring semester classes cut: 225
School-year classes cut: 17 percent
Valley College
Enrollment: 20,000
Spring semester classes cut: 160
School-year classes cut: 30 percent
Article courtesy of the LA Daily News
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