Online collections of folk songs going back hundreds of years. She has exposed a private art college where students rack up massive levels of debt (one student's topped $400k), and covered audits peering into UC finances, education lawsuits and countless student protests.īut writing about higher education also means getting a look at the brainy creations of students and faculty: Robotic suits that help paralyzed people walk. She's written about sexual misconduct at UC and Stanford, the precarious state of accreditation at City College of San Francisco, and what happens when the UC Berkeley student government discovers a gay rights opponent in its midst. Nanette covers California's public universities - the University of California and California State University - as well as community colleges and private universities. "All the leading economic researchers say California needs more college-educated workers, but we as a state have not made higher education the priority it needs to be." "If Proposition 30 fails, local colleges face even more dramatic cuts in the middle of the academic year," Scott said. If rejected by voters, the measure would result in a state-mandated loss of millions of dollars to California's public colleges and universities in January: Community colleges would lose $338 million, while CSU and the University of California would each lose $250 million. Others to jails.Ĭhancellor Scott, meanwhile, used the survey to call attention to Proposition 30, the tax measure on the November ballot that is being held as a Sword of Damocles over public colleges and universities.
What's happening, college officials say, is that thousands of students are simply unable to register for the courses they need because the classes are filled.Īs to what happened to all the students who haven't been able to get their classes, it's anyone's guess. Unlike California's four-year universities, community colleges are not permitted to reject students. "In the last four years, I would say the Master Plan is no longer guiding our decision-making," Garcia said. Despite enrollment reductions, many courses are jam-packed. Garcia gave a rueful laugh about that as he considered the many Diablo Valley students forced to linger on course waitlists or plead with instructors to be allowed to cram into classes. And the Sonoma County Junior College District has eliminated certain kinds of tutoring.Ĭalifornia's Master Plan for Higher Education, which has guided state policy on colleges and universities since 1960, says that community colleges are to be available for anyone capable of benefiting from them. De Anza College in Cupertino is testing half the number of students for learning disabilities. Other Bay Area colleges also reported trouble serving students as well as they did in the past.Ĭontra Costa College in San Pablo eliminated counseling appointments and is taking drop-ins only. It has also lost about 30 full- and part-time faculty because there weren't enough classes for them to teach, Garcia said. But we've got to do it." Diablo Valley lost studentsĭiablo Valley, which participated in the survey, opened the fall semester with an enrollment of 7,200 - down 700 students since last fall. Turning away students "is hard psychically for us because we have a commitment to do some public good. "We're an agency that is designed to help students," Garcia said of community colleges in general. "I don't fault the instinct that led (City College) to do that," said Peter Garcia, president of Diablo Valley College in Pleasant Hill, which has cut $14 million since 2009 to cope with rising costs and a $5.2 million loss of state funds. One that didn't respond was City College of San Francisco, which is fighting to remain accredited and keep its doors open after years of overspending and refusing to make significant cuts in services as other colleges sliced with a more vigorous knife. In all, 78 colleges responded to the survey, or 70 percent. The survey found that most colleges also reduced the size of their staffs, and provided fewer student services or eliminated them entirely. Today, it's closer to 2.4 million, a loss of 485,000 students, Scott said. Four years ago, the colleges served 2.9 million students. The result has been a dramatic drop in the number of students the system can afford to teach, the survey suggests.
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