Education for less
Sacramento Bee 1/4/07
Students will pay $20 per unit for the upcoming semester, down from $26. That adds up to $90 in savings for a typical 15-unit semester load -- about the cost of a textbook.
Or as Sacramento City College student Joe Puma put it Wednesday after registering for classes: "Six dollars -- that's, like, a lunch."
It's small but welcome relief after the angry protests in 2004, when community college students across California showed up by the thousands at the state Capitol to protest increased fees. To help close a budget gap, the cost of taking classes had more than doubled over three years, shooting to $26 from $11 per unit.
As fees went up, the statewide community college chancellor's office sounded the alarm that enrollment was dropping.
State lawmakers who initially endorsed the earlier fee hikes changed gears and rolled back the fees as part of the 2006-07 state budget agreement.
"They certainly stand out," said Sandy Baum, an economics professor at Skidmore College who studies college tuition trends. "It is a rarity."
Over the past decade, tuition and fees at public and private colleges have increased at roughly double the pace of inflation, according to a recent survey Baum conducted for the College Board.
Community colleges were designed to be the most affordable -- and accessible -- part of California's public higher education system. Annual fees at California State University are $2,520. It costs $6,141 to attend a University of California campus each year. At $20 a unit, two semesters' worth of community college classes costs $600.
Still, the previous community college fee increases were jarring to students.
"The $20 will bring back more people," said Barbara Hamlett, an American River College student who sits on the Los Rios Community College District board of trustees. The district -- the second largest in the state, with nearly 80,000 students -- purchased ads on the sides of buses to promote the fee reduction.
The Community College League of California, an advocacy arm for the two-year college system, and teachers' groups are circulating a petition for a 2008 statewide ballot measure to knock the fees even lower -- to $15 a unit -- and limit future increases.
"While fees look cheap from a distance, the students on the bubble are managing a cash budget that is often based on hourly wages and competing obligations," said Scott Lay, president of the Community College League.
Some budget and policy analysts say cutting community college fees is misguided because it subsidizes students who could afford the old fees -- especially with more than 40 percent of the state's 2.5 million community college students -- mostly part-time -- already receiving fee waivers because of their low income.
"This only would help out the students who do pay fees who are not needy," said Steve Boilard of the state's nonpartisan Legislative Analyst's Office.
The state will spend an extra $115 million over the next year to cover lost income from the fees -- money Boilard suggests could be better spent on measures to help academically struggling students.
Pat Callan, president of the National Center for Public Policy and Higher Education, agreed.
"All the really low-income students are already covered," he said. He said the extra costs of books and living expenses are doing more to scare students from campus.
"It's a one-dimensional strategy," he said. "We just think we can get there with low tuition alone. Just cutting tuition at this point doesn't buy us very much."
Community college in California was free until 1984, when the state began charging $5 a unit -- capping the total semester tuition cost at $50 into the early 1990s.
The fees have gradually gone up, but it's still a great deal, said Lynda Pesquera, 45, who was registering for classes at Sacramento City College on Wednesday.
She said kids buy CDs for more than the $26 charged per unit. "It's time to say thank you for the good education we have ... in California," she said.
But student Sarah Jane Miller, 24, said reducing the fees helps her fellow cash-strapped classmates, many of whom are older, returning students looking for second careers while supportng a family.
"It seems cheap," she said. "Here in our world, it's not."