SMC — Santa Monica College is on track to break its 2010-11 record for number of applications for enrollment received, despite funding cuts that result in ever-fewer seats for qualified students.
The number of applications received thus far for the 2011-12 school year is 4.5 percent higher than at the same time last year, which capped at 80,025, according to a presentation released at Tuesday’s SMC Board of Trustees meeting.
At the same time, the school lost $6 million in state funding as a result of budget cuts, said Don Girard, senior director of government relations and institutional communications at SMC.
“This is what happens as a result of all that,” he said. “There are fewer seats statewide for people attending public higher education. Our investment in higher education has dropped dramatically in the last three years.”
For months, state legislators wrangled over California’s budget in an attempt to cut the $26.6 billion deficit while not extending or increasing tax revenue.
The results: epic cuts to social services and all levels of education that caused officials to promise tuition hikes and, in some cases, service decreases.
It’s hardly the first time higher education has taken a hit.
In the last three years, $2 billion have been cut from higher education, Girard said.
That’s resulted in SMC adding as many students to classes “as practical,” Girard said, but the school has already hit that point.
The lack of classes is causing students to approach their degrees differently.
According to the report, the number of students petitioning for associate’s degrees is on the rise, jumping by about 80 students between the 2008-09 and 2009-10 school years.
“Our students do not typically complete their AA requirements in two years, but rather often take longer,” the report reads. “However, with the increased challenges associated with getting classes, it is encouraging to see that our students are petitioning and being awarded their AA degrees in increasing numbers.”
Problematically, the cuts are taking effect at a time that 9.2 percent of Americans, 11.8 percent of Californians and 10.5 percent of Santa Monicans are out of work, increasing the number of people knocking on the doors of community colleges and other educational institutions to get re-trained to enter the workforce.
It’s what Paul Lanning, president and CEO of the Foundation for California Community Colleges, calls “a perfect storm.”
“As demand is skyrocketing, supply is somewhat dwindling,” Lanning said. “It’s an interesting and challenging time here in California. We’re feeling it more acutely here because of the nature of the state budget crisis.”
California has the largest system of higher learning in the nation, and for decades it’s had an open-door policy to welcome every person for any reason, be it a degree, a desire to transfer to another institution or just an adult looking to take a swimming class, Lanning said.
Not only may that mission have to get pared down, the funding model, which gets money almost exclusively from tuition and the state, may need to embrace other kinds of public-private partnerships.
“Every crisis presents an opportunity,” Lanning said. “In this environment, we’ve never had a better opportunity to tell the story of why public universities need to look at private support and and public-private partnerships.”
One funding concept that’s bouncing around the halls of the state legislature is Assembly Bill 515, carried by Julia Brownley (D-Santa Monica).
Brownley’s bill would allow colleges to charge the full cost of a class — including materials, teachers’ salaries and lab costs — so that extra courses could be offered at no cost to the state.
A course that now costs $36 per unit could jump up to $175.
Her argument is that extra sessions of classes could continue to be offered, lessening the burden on colleges that need to provide those classes for students who need to graduate or matriculate to a UC or CSU.
“That’s something that’s being talked about an awful lot,” Lanning said.
The ultimate fear rests with what these cuts will mean a decade or two down the road.
“My fear is that a generation from now, we’ll see the impact because a generation of displaced people were not able to gain access to the education they needed to succeed in the workforce,” Lanning said. “That’s a ripple impact that’s not felt now.”
ashley@www.smdp.com