Bush has offered recognition to the role such schools play in filling jobs. The drumbeat for adequate community college funding finally has been heard at the White House. In his State of the Union address Tuesday night, President Bush announced a two-pronged funding boost that will expand Pell Grants by $1,000 each for low-income students and add $250 million for job-training-related college classes.

While the details are few and the actual funding amounts small, the attention given the hardest working but underappreciated institutions of higher education by the president in his nationally televised address is big time.

Finally, these neighborhood colleges have been put in the national spotlight. Pair that with the recognition given California community colleges by Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger, who as a graduate himself sees them as places where immigrants can get a head start, and things are beginning to look up. The two-year institutions have been given a reprieve from next year's proposed budget cuts by the governor, and we hope they'll escape the Legislature's budget ax as well come July.

The Legislature has continued a huge imbalance in per-pupil funding, with UC campuses in 2001 receiving $26,952; Cal State campuses, $10,905, and community colleges $4,690. Those ratios have not changed much. Even K-12 per-pupil funding was higher than community colleges, at $7,487.

Meanwhile, recent cuts in higher education have hit community colleges hard, slicing class offerings in 2003 mostly in English/language arts, math, computer science and vocational ed, according to the state community college chancellor's office.

Community colleges reported an 8.7 percent decrease in the overall number of classes this fall from the year prior, resulting in more students being left standing in the halls instead of sitting inside the classrooms of required subjects.

Now is the time for the community colleges to take this funding handoff and begin scoring additional funding, not for administration, not for higher salaries, not for more technology, but for more class sections and yes, more instructors.

More nursing courses, for example, would be a good place to start. Extra work-force funding proposed by the president should be used to expand these and other like programs, as hospitals, clinics and long-term-care facilities are in dire need of nurses and health-care professionals.

At least for the next couple of years, or however long it takes for the state to solve its fiscal crisis, California community colleges need more funding to help students get a valuable education and, in the words of the president, "to train workers for the industries that are creating the most new jobs."