Community Colleges See Demand Spike, Funding Slip
by: Valerie Strauss
The Washington Post

Hundreds of thousands of students are likely to be turned
away from low-cost community colleges across the country
over the next year because of funding cuts at the very
time that record numbers of students are flocking to the
open-admission schools, according to education officials.

The Obama administration is promising to help the country’s
almost 1,200 community colleges, which educate about
12 million students, or 44 percent of all undergraduates,
including the majority of blacks and Hispanics. White
House Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel recently said that the
administration was working on a plan that would allow as
many as 5 million more students or laid-off workers to
attend the schools, which are at the fore of retraining
efforts.

But it is not clear whether the infusion of resources will
be sufficient or swift enough to stop the plans of schools
across the country to trim programs and staff as a result
of severe budget cuts from state and local governments,
school officials say.

“For us to turn away students is anathema,” said Norma
Kent, vice president of communications for the nonprofit
American Association of Community Colleges, based in the
District. “We are open-enrollment institutions. It’s in
our DNA.”

In the greater Washington area, officials at community
colleges say they are trying to find ways to handle a
decline in resources without rejecting students, but
with enrollment rising, it might not be possible to serve
everyone.

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“I worry about it all the time,” said Robert Templin,
president of Northern Virginia Community College, which
has lost more than 10 percent of its state funding, or
$8.2 million in the past two years, and is preparing for
the possibility of an additional 5 percent cut. “We’re
trying to make up some of the cuts through tuition
increases, but it is not enough to help us keep up with
demands. These state budget reductions are happening at
a time when more and more people recognize that getting
a college education is critical to their future.”

The recession has driven state and local legislatures –
which provide community colleges with 60 percent of their
funding – to cut resources for the schools as they try to
close deep deficits.

At the same time, high unemployment is driving more people
to seek low-cost retraining. And difficult economic times
are prompting some parents to send their children to two-
year schools rather than more expensive four-year
institutions. The result is an unprecedented surge in the
number of applicants to community colleges.

Community colleges, Kent said, are “the safety valve” for
the neediest students. Average tuition and fees total about
$2,400, compared with the average tuition of $6,600 for
in-state public four-year colleges, according to the
AACC. The most vulnerable students, she said, are first-
generation – often minorities – who might not enroll early
enough to beat new caps or class-size limits.

“It’s sad,” she said. “Community colleges are under greater
stress than they’ve ever been, just when they are in more
demand than they have ever been.”

Under a Maryland funding formula, the state’s 16 community
colleges were supposed to receive $50 million in new money
for fiscal 2010 but got only $7 million. The District has
no community college, although one is expected to open this
fall at the University of the District of Columbia.

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Templin cut 45 full-time staff positions at NVCC but has
hired more adjunct professors to handle a record number
of students. Summer enrollment is up 10 percent from a
year ago, and officials expect a big jump in the fall.

Montgomery County Community College officials said that
some students might be unable to attend this fall because
financial aid applications are up almost 20 percent and
state assistance has not increased, said spokeswoman
Elizabeth Homan.

“We do not turn students away, as we are open admissions,
but we cannot fulfill every student’s financial needs or
scheduling considerations,” she said.

At Prince George’s Community College, where enrollment has
increased by at least 4 percent each of the past two years
to more than 37,000 students, officials are holding staff
vacancies open longer than usual, freezing some positions
and delaying hires – all of which is aimed at saving about
$500,000, said school spokesman Deidra Hill.

At the 57,000-student Anne Arundel Community College,
officials are trying to deal with enrollment increases
while working with a 2009-10 budget that has the same
funding as two years ago, said Linda Schulte, director
of public relations and marketing. Still, she said,
circumstances would have been worse if the state had
not directed $1 million in federal stimulus money to
the school. About 15 staff positions have been frozen,
she said.

Kent said hundreds of thousands of students could be
turned away this coming year from community colleges,
especially in states where the legislatures are facing
the deepest deficits.

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The largest community college in the country, Miami Dade
College, announced that it is effectively capping enroll-
ment at the current 167,000 students for the first time
because of deep budget cuts by the Florida legislature.
Because no class sections can be added, officials there
say they expect more than 5,000 students to be unable to
enroll in any classes this fall and at least 30,000 more
to miss out on classes necessary for graduation.

In the 110-school California system, at least 200,000
students could be forced to give up plans to enroll
this coming year, officials there said.

One school, City College of San Francisco, has announced
a plan to allow individuals to pay $6,000 to save a course
on the chopping block and rename it after the donor in
return – although school trustees postponed implementation.

The San Diego Community College District is expecting to
cut $10 million from its 2009-10 budget – on top of the
$10 million it eliminated last year. As a result, 117
full-time employee positions will be eliminated, as will
more than 1,300 classes.

“All of us are concerned about the reduction in classes
when the region’s high unemployment has caused many to
turn to community colleges for retraining,” District
Chancellor Constance Carroll said in a statement.

At Tacoma Community College in Washington state, fall
enrollment is 40 percent ahead of last year, and more than
40 sections – mostly in math, science and English – have
been added. The school was 14 percent over-enrolled last
year, said communications director Dale Stowell, meaning
it received no state funding for one in every seven
students. With classes expected to be filled sometime next
month, he expects many students to be turned away.

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