The state Legislative Analyst’s Office (LAO) says in a new report that lawmakers could increase community college fees up to 3 times their current level without greatly affecting enrollment at the schools, which include nine colleges in Orange County.
The report does not recommend a specific increase, but says: “If the state were to increase fees to up to $60 per unit (or $1,800 for a full–time student), eligible students taking 30 units per year would be able to take full advantage of the tax credit—while leaving room to receive some reimbursement for textbook costs.”
The LAO report drew an immediate protest from the California Community College (CCC) system, which said any significant fee increase could have a devastating impact on enrollment, forcing tens of thousands of students to forgo an education.
…
The new analysis says: “New federal tax credit provisions allow the state to tap potentially hundreds of millions of new federal dollars for higher education. Because these tax credits will fully reimburse most California Community College (CCC) students for the fees they pay, the state could raise those fees (and revenue for CCC) with no net impact on most students. The purpose of this brief is to provide additional information—in a question-and-answer format—related to our recommendation.”
[CCC’s Paige Marlatt] Dorr added that previous fee increases had led to major declines in enrollment, a claim the LAO report disputes. The report says, “Our analysis suggests that this claim about fees being the sole or even the major cause of enrollment declines is exaggerated. In fact, there are several explanations for the enrollment declines.”….
Friday, June 12, 2009
Big community college fee increases recommended by LAO
State hints at big fee hike for community colleges (OC Register; Gary Robbins)
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6 comments:
If fees were raised, would that not reduce the flake factor? I've often thought that if classes were not so cheap, more work would be put into them, and those who come to hang out for next to nothing would have to find other ways to be annoying.
In SOCCCD flaky students may also have access to cash--or to their parents' cash. So, fee increases may not affect flakiness. What will increase, I think, is the number of students who will feel entitled to receive good grades because they are paying more for them than before.
Regarding the flake factor: I think drop out rates of community colleges are really similar to that of freshmen in universities. The flakiness is more a thing of the person. Flakes, in my experience, don't usually make it to school on their own, they're forced there by parents.
I've taught both in the CC's and the university level, and I have observed that the dropout rate, for example, is several times higher in the CC's. Yes, there are the usual flakes at the freshman university level, but they are, generally, there for classes.
MY RANT. 11:37, no doubt such a difference exists, but our job is to get people prepared for jobs and for the next step in their academic career. The reasons for the notorious high rates of student flakiness at CCs are complex and difficult to address, but we must address them, for our communities and our state need trained and educated people (and not only to provide a workplace for industry; it's a matter of the health of the culture). I don't want to put words into your mouth, but it won't do to say, "if there's no room for flaky students, so be it!" That's an understandable sentiment, but it doesn't address a very serious problem: that these dopey kids need to be educated and trained, not only for their sakes but for everyone's sake. We need to get them in the seats and keep them there, doing the work. From my perspective as a teacher of nearly three decades, the biggest (and perhaps most intractable) problem in education is, roughly, poor parenting. so often, parents seem to think that if they get their kid to show up at school, they've done their job, and the state needs to do the rest. It doesn't work that way. Kids must understand that they've got to work, to pay some dues. Nobody--not parents, not schools (apparently), and certainly not peers or popular culture--teaches them that they've got to work at things, achieve things, make sacrifices. Among many of my students, such notions seem foreign. (The problem exists across the spectrum of institutions of higher learning; it isn't only at CCs.) In my experience, the students that tend to work the hardest and achieve the most come from immigrant populations--kids coming from places (cultures, families) where life is more difficult, and it is understood that one gets somewhere only by competing and working and sacrificing. MY UNPLEASANT POINT:: Americans parents need to look at themselves and see that they are the reason that, in general (though there are many exceptions), the current younger generation is, well, the most unpromising and unprepared ever.
Alright, I retract my statement. I double checked, I am clearly mistaken on my drop out information.
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