Updated Sept. 16 with new info from the Chancellor’s office

Community College students would have to pay as much as 300 percent more for some high-demand classes under a divisive bill on its way to Gov. Jerry Brown after passing the state Senate and Assembly this week.

Assembly Bill 955, by Assemblyman Das Williams, D-Santa Barbara, would create pilot programs at six severely overcrowded community colleges to see if students are willing to pay higher fees to take over-enrolled courses during the inter-session summer or winter terms rather than languish on a wait list to take the course during the traditional fall or spring semester.

California residents normally pay $46 a unit, with the rest subsidized by the state. Under AB 955, California students would pay the same price as out-of-state residents for impacted courses they can’t get into during regular session. Fees for out-of-state residents generally vary from $140 to $170 per unit – often with additional campus-based fees – depending on the campus, but do go higher. Pasadena City College, one of the AB 955 pilot schools, charges $193 per unit. Palo Verde Community College in Riverside County charges $404 per unit, which includes a capital outlay fee of $179, the highest nonresident tuition in the state. Most classes are three units.

“The idea behind offering summer and winter courses at a higher rate is to allow students who need one more class to pay the full price, roughly $600, so they could transfer to a university or move into the workplace sooner,” Williams wrote in an Op-Ed for the Daily Cal, the student paper at the University of California, Berkeley.

Enrollment has been falling for nearly every group of students at the state's community colleges in recent years, as budget cuts forced colleges to eliminate thousands of classes and, in many cases, shut down summer school.

Enrollment has been falling for nearly every group of students at the state’s community colleges in recent years, as budget cuts forced colleges to eliminate thousands of classes and, in many cases, shut down summer school.

 

During the recession, community colleges lost about $1.5 billion in state funding and eliminated 100,000 courses to make ends meet. As a result, at least 500,000 students were effectively shut out of school because they couldn’t get into their required classes.

Even though the state budget is stabilizing, and Proposition 30, the voter-approved tax hike, is bringing in more money for education, there’s not enough cash to restore all that was lost.

“When community colleges turn away students who desire to learn, community colleges are failing at their mission,” Williams wrote. “When community colleges force students to wait one to four years to transfer because they don’t offer enough courses for all students, community colleges are failing at their mission.”

Critics of the bill, paradoxically, also invoke the mission of community colleges in urging, first legislators, and now, the governor, to reject the measure. They warn that AB 955 would create a two-tiered system of public higher education based on a student’s ability to pay.

“We have had historically free, at first, and then very low cost open and equal access, and this bill, I believe, fundamentally changes that equation,” said statewide Community Colleges Chancellor Brice Harris during this week’s Board of Governor’s meeting at the Lemoore campus of West Hills Community College.

A house divided

Although the bill easily passed the Assembly on Tuesday, by a vote of 57 to 14, and 26 to 12 in the Senate a day earlier, the tally showed fissures in the Democratic caucus. Democrats cast 24 of the 26 total “no” votes in both houses. In the Senate, Democrats were almost evenly split, with 14 supporting the bill and 12 opposing it.

That’s “unheard of on a Democratic bill,” said Sen. Marty Block, D-San Diego, chair of the Senate budget subcommittee on education and a former community college trustee in San Diego. “It shows strong concern.”

Chief among his concerns is that if the pilot programs are successful and students with means are willing to pony up more money for classes, it sends a troubling message to lawmakers considering cuts during future economic downturns.

“I fear that my successors here in Sacramento will decide that the state shouldn’t spend so much money on higher education because there would be proof that college students are willing to pay a larger percentage,” Block said.

In the extreme, he said that decrease in public support for higher education “would basically create a private education system.”

Prior to 1984, California community colleges had no fees. Source: Community college chancellor's office.

Prior to 1984, California community colleges had no fees. Source: Community college chancellor’s office.

The bill has also created a split among the state’s community colleges. At least four of the six colleges in the pilot program are on record supporting the bill: Long Beach City College, College of the Canyons in north Los Angeles County, Solano Community College and Crafton Hills College in San Bernardino County.

“We’re hoping that we’ll be on the cutting edge of providing new ways of access for students,” said Alisa Moore, public relations director for the San Bernardino Community College District, which includes Crafton Hills.

The statewide chancellor’s office says one of those schools, Solano, doesn’t meet the terms of the bill and shouldn’t be on the list because it is not overcrowded and, in fact, received stabilization funding in the current 2013-14 budget due to enrollment declines.

It’s not clear where the other two colleges named in the bill – Oxnard and Pasadena City College – stand, but Jordyn Orozco, president of the Associated Students of Pasadena City College, said students are against it.

“It puts students at an unfair advantage, especially students who need financial aid,” Orozco said. Orozco added that college president Mark Rocha has told him that he’s not interested in a two-tiered education system. Several attempts to contact Rocha were not successful.

Trustees of Pasadena City College had contemplated a two-tiered fees system last year. They proposed charging about $180 per unit for courses in high demand, but backed down in the wake of student protests.

Eloy Ortiz Oakley, superintendent-president of Long Beach City College, where more than 4,000 students are currently on wait lists for classes, makes no bones about his support of the AB 955. He’s posted an “AB 955 Call to Action” on the college’s website.

“AB 955 is the only option available to provide immediate, cost-effective access to students during intersessions,” Oakley wrote. “Although the courses would be at a higher fee, about $250 per unit, it would allow students to finish sooner.”

The bill has been tamped down from its original version, which would have authorized the board of any community college in the state to launch full-priced, intersession courses. But even its amended form, with just six campuses in a pilot program, doesn’t sway critics.

There are no changes that will make the bill more palatable to faculty, said Beth Smith, president of the Academic Senate for California Community Colleges, which passed a resolution opposing the bill.

She said the bill would create a situation where students at one college are paying more for the same course taught at a neighboring college for a much lower fee. “That doesn’t seem like a good option for a student,” Smith said. “That’s why it’s hard to find any amendment that works.”

The bill does place some limits on schools, however, to keep them in check. Colleges must set aside a third of the fees to provide financial aid for students who would normally qualify for a Board of Governors’ fee waiver, which waives fees for needy students. Colleges in the pilot are also prohibited from scaling back state-subsidized courses in order to supplant them with the higher cost classes.

Proposition 30, the initiative approved last November raising tax revenues for schools and community colleges, is slowly repairing some of the damage done by the recession. On Wednesday, the chancellor’s office released results of a survey completed by 95 of the state’s 112 community colleges, which showed a 5 percent increase in the number of courses offered this year over last year and a 2.5 percent increase in enrollment.

Having lost the battle in the Legislature on AB 955, opponents are now focusing on Brown, who has until Oct. 13 to sign or veto the bill. His press secretary Evan Westrup said the governor hasn’t taken a position yet on the bill and said his office won’t comment on legislation before the governor takes action.

Smith said she hasn’t heard anything to indicate how the governor is leaning, but she’s counting on him to uphold his promise to voters that if they passed Proposition 30, he would not to raise tuition at public colleges and universities.

 

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  1. Rachel Kanakaole 11 years ago11 years ago

    I just wanted to inform you that your information concerning Crafton supporting the bill absolutely and completely FALSE.Us students attended our districts board meeting, filled up the entire room and the hallways to show our DISAPPROVAL AND REJECTION OF AB 955. CRAFTON HILLS COLLEGE AND THE WHOLE SAN BERNARDINO COMMUNITY COLLEGE DISTRICT DOES NOT SUPPORT, DID NOT SUPPORT, AND WILL NEVER SUPPORT AB 955. I just needed to make that clear.

  2. Jose Michel 11 years ago11 years ago

    Palo Verde enrolls inmates from the state penitentiary why should the state subsidize this district. Bad idea, ba policy with no accountability.

  3. Paul 11 years ago11 years ago

    The state keeps threatening a two-tiered community college tuition regime. The first targets were those ingrates with BAs who had the nerve to pick up a second language, learn a new computer application, or switch professions. This time, it's those young opportunists who want to get out on time by taking summer or intersession courses. Don't they realize that they are single-handedly responsible for the state's burgeoning debt? If anything, the freeloaders should be working … Read More

    The state keeps threatening a two-tiered community college tuition regime. The first targets were those ingrates with BAs who had the nerve to pick up a second language, learn a new computer application, or switch professions. This time, it’s those young opportunists who want to get out on time by taking summer or intersession courses. Don’t they realize that they are single-handedly responsible for the state’s burgeoning debt? If anything, the freeloaders should be working at Wal-Mart during the summer to self-fund their BOG waivers! [Sadly, that is more or less how the federal “work-study” program operates.]

    This ill-advised bill flies in the face of economic reality. In the aggregate, summer and intersession courses are LESS expensive than academic-year courses. This is because they make use of capital assets — classrooms, computers, library collections, etc. — that would otherwise sit idle for three months of the year. Providing summer and intersession courses also avoids peak-period operating expenses. Whereas the baseline, year-round staff in admissions, registration, assessment, and advising can well handle additional demand during the summer, it costs real money to add supplementary staff to meet demand during the academic year.

    Students are, of course, a minor factor in the state’s revenue-raising plan, but if we remember the students for a moment, it’s conceivable that the intensive form of summer and intersession courses improves academic outcomes. Students spend more daily hours mastering fewer subjects. Because summer and intersession classes meet every day, homework and study become daily rather than every-other-day routines.

    If anything, the state should be charging less for intersession and summer classes. I remember reading that the University of California offered financial incentives to campuses in its system that were willing to promote summer courses, back in the 1970s.

  4. Replies

    • Kathryn Baron 11 years ago11 years ago

      Hi Hanna,

      Thank you for providing the update regarding Pasadena City College.

  5. Jeff Weaver 11 years ago11 years ago

    The reason that students cannot get the classes that they need is basically because there has not been sufficient funding to hire instructors to teach those courses. In the last few years, retiring instructors have seldom replaced. We have the facilities, but insufficient funding for the instructional staff. There is already a two tiered system in place for those who CAN AFFORD it — private schools.

  6. Lisa Riggs 11 years ago11 years ago

    This would abolish opportunities for college programs to move into year round education (i.e. Allied Health programs, career technical education) to expedite completion and to be responsive to community needs in times of workforce shortages. This has a crippling and divisive potential which is not consistent with the mission and intent of California community colleges.

  7. Jack Heinsius 11 years ago11 years ago

    Hard to conceive of a bill more divisive to the mission and purpose of the community college system or more contrary to the evolving educational needs of the state. Another brick in the ever heightening wall between economic classes in our country.
    If this is the best plan administrators can devise perhaps we should be looking in that area for cost savings.

    Jack Heinsius
    Faculty Emeritus
    Modesto Junior College

  8. Michael G 11 years ago11 years ago

    There are a lot of non-essential classes that could be cut along with some administrators to provide the money. The administrators just want to get more money from anywhere they can without having to make any tough choices themselves.

  9. Hanna Israel 11 years ago11 years ago

    AB955 isn’t even able to be implemented at Pasadena City College because the college now operates on a trimester academic calendar. Assemblymember Williams didn’t do his homework during what should have been a very important and well-informed decision of which colleges to name in this pilot program.

  10. Bea 11 years ago11 years ago

    Um, wouldn’t the appropriate response to high demand be to increase supply?

    Most of those high demand courses are general requirements. There are many thousands of students trying to meet those requirements. Allow students to finish sooner by providing the courses they need, not by gating access through market-based pricing.

    Please Governor Brown: Do not sign this bill!