By Jamie Corpuz
Sun entertainment editor
On Jan . 8 , Gov . Schwarzenegger proposed to provide $305 million to the California State Universities 2010-2011 budget and as a result of this and thanks to a $76.5 million federal allocation , CSU will be allocating a $50.9 million one-News Analysis time stimulus to its campuses to make available additional courses as well as student support services. They hope to have 8,100 reinstated course sections by this fall.
Over the last two years the Cal State program has applied many cost cutting techniques including enrollment cuts, employee furloughs and layoffs, as well as class reductions to cope with the 21 percent decrease in state support for higher education.
While the additional funding will certainly help, financial support is still very much below the 2007-2008 levels.
Students at the community college level, will see an increase in funding in this next budget; however, not as great. Two-year schools on average pull only 30 percent of the federal funding per student as state universities, but growth funding can only be expected if performance and the rate of degree completion rise.
With unemployment on the rise and the market still in recovery, many upper middle-class students have learned the not so hush-hush secret of the lower middle-class: get your core classes out of the way at a cheaper price. In fact, 800 of 1,100 courses were completely filled by the first day here on campus according to Wes Bryan, president of Golden West College.
A bright side may appear, despite all the cutbacks. As political science professor Margot Bowlby puts it , “Faculty and administration really need to look at the way our college has been run the last three or four years and assess the areas in which we have or have not developed successfully.”
Though these cut backs are painful on immediate terms, perhaps trimming the fat off our courses and streamlining our system will be healthier in the long run.
While this may go against the full mission of a community college in the sense that it does not offer a wide variety of classes, GWC may be able to restructure in upcoming years to bring back more classes and increase graduation rates and in return receive more funding.
Naturally, the many budget solutions will require significant time for departments to put into effect – which means, college students will just have to stick it out and prove their resilience.
