2008 Woodie Awards
Budget Overview
Louie Arujo
Issue date: 4/2/03 Section: College News
Governor Gray Davis' 2003-04 budget proposal for overcoming the state's $34.5 billion two-year shortfall has sent shock waves throughout California's 108 Community Colleges. The Governor's proposal, announced January 10, would slash funding per student by $658 dollars while increasing community college enrollment fees by 118 percent to $24 per unit. This represents an increase of $13 dollars per unit. For a student taking 24 units per year, this increase would translate into an additional $312 for the academic year.
Since community college tuition does not stay with each institution but goes directly to the state's general budget, students face paying more for considerably less. Substantial losses in academic programs and cuts to student services will be the result of disproportionate cuts aimed at community colleges.
Chancellor of California Community Colleges Thomas J. Nussbaum, in a written testimony posted on the Chancellor's Office website, said that the governor's proposed budget "would impose a disproportionate reduction on our colleges that is both manifestly unfair to the students we serve and harmful to the state's social and economic future."
"The reduction would force us to betray the California Master's Plan of access to higher education," continued Nussbaum. "It would take away social and economic opportunity for hundreds of thousands of the state's most needy and deserving individuals; it would force us to reduce services and program quality of the state's largest workforce provider to help meet compelling needs; and it would thwart the major role that community colleges play in reversing social injustices manifested by poverty, incarceration, welfare dependency and lack of educational attainment."
On Monday, March 3, Chancellor Nussbaum testified to the Senate Budget Subcommittee on Education Finance (Sub 1) that Governor Davis' proposal for funding community colleges is unacceptable. The budget subcommittee, chaired by Senator Jack Scott (D-Pasadena), a former president of Pasadena City College, promised to bring some proportionality to the budget, according to a state budget update provided by the Community College League of California.
Since community college tuition does not stay with each institution but goes directly to the state's general budget, students face paying more for considerably less. Substantial losses in academic programs and cuts to student services will be the result of disproportionate cuts aimed at community colleges.
Chancellor of California Community Colleges Thomas J. Nussbaum, in a written testimony posted on the Chancellor's Office website, said that the governor's proposed budget "would impose a disproportionate reduction on our colleges that is both manifestly unfair to the students we serve and harmful to the state's social and economic future."
"The reduction would force us to betray the California Master's Plan of access to higher education," continued Nussbaum. "It would take away social and economic opportunity for hundreds of thousands of the state's most needy and deserving individuals; it would force us to reduce services and program quality of the state's largest workforce provider to help meet compelling needs; and it would thwart the major role that community colleges play in reversing social injustices manifested by poverty, incarceration, welfare dependency and lack of educational attainment."
On Monday, March 3, Chancellor Nussbaum testified to the Senate Budget Subcommittee on Education Finance (Sub 1) that Governor Davis' proposal for funding community colleges is unacceptable. The budget subcommittee, chaired by Senator Jack Scott (D-Pasadena), a former president of Pasadena City College, promised to bring some proportionality to the budget, according to a state budget update provided by the Community College League of California.
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