By Guest Commentary By Deb Helt
Over the past three years, I have had the pleasure of taking several classes at Santa Monica College. From Spanish and oil painting to finite math and biotech-nology, I have developed a deep love and respect for the school in all its varied missions. As most Santa Monica residents know, the past year has been especially challenging for SMC and really involved the California Community College system.
As of Sept. 9, 2003, the LATimes cited an estimated 90,000 students had either dropped out or simply not enrolled in California’s community colleges this year because of increased tuition and reduced class offerings following the budget cuts. Many working and studying in this system fear a further drop in the head count, as the combination of increased tuition and reduced class offerings continues to reverberate through the state.
Many might not realize that California actually spends 23 percent less per community college student than the U.S. average, ranking 45th out of 49 states in spending per student. With state spending per UC student hovering around $20,000 per student, Cal-State spending at just below $10,000, and community college spending at just below $5,000 per student, historically Californians have spent the least amount of money supporting students who are often the most financially and academically vulnerable.
The sudden removal of seven large vocational programs from Santa Monica College in the spring of last year left an especially deep and bitter rift in the institution. The programs eliminated included automotive technology, architecture and office information systems among others.
The decision was made in the wake of proposed cuts that, following months of unabated protest statewide, were reduced from 10.6 percent to 1.7 percent. Despite this dramatic reduction in the proposed to actual cuts, the programs were not reinstated, nor were there any serious public discussions about the possibility of reinstating the expensive but valuable programs on a limited basis.
“the system enrolls three times as many students as CSU and six times as many as UC, including most of the African-American, Native Amer-ican and Latino students who attend institutions of higher education in Calif-ornia.” — According to a report by the non-profit Public Policy Institute, despite low levels of state funding
Following this move and the subsequent layoffs of eight full-time faculty and 18 classified employees, SMC’s students, faculty, and their administration went to war over what many campus constituencies felt was the hasty and the unnecessary decision to eliminate the programs and staff members. Dissent poured in from all over campus.
This coming year the SMC president and the Board of Trustees have an extremely challenging job. In addition to the task of cooling the smoldering flames of anger from students and faculty, they must return to attendance levels — plus approximately 2 percent more — than what they had before the cuts, in order to maintain certain state funding. SMC alone lost an estimated 6,000 students at the beginning of this school year following a 26 percent reduction in class offerings.
In attempt to fully restore the school’s head count, administrators are undertaking an ambitious recruitment program, and introducing a new set of vocational pro-gramming rooted in training classroom teachers and healthcare professionals. SMC spokesman Bruce Smith said the administration will be attempting to restore all class sections that had been cut, “regardless of how the budget shakes out”
In the meantime, SMC’s embattled president Piedad F. Robertson was appointed to Gov. Arnold Schwarzeneg-ger’s task force as a representative on education. It’s a move dripping with irony, if you ask any of her myriad of critics — 413 members of the faculty (or 86 percent) voted no confidence in her job as president following the program eliminations. For better or worse, Robertson has shown herself to be a powerful character — charming, confident and entirely willing to be extremely unpopular.
One factor that may prove helpful is the fact that Gov. Schwarzenegger is a SMC alumni. He has, thus far, not proposed any mid-fiscal year cuts to the system, and he has included in Proposition 57 an item called “equalization” that would assist SMC with an additional $3.6 million this year. Since Prop. 13 passed, SMC has consistently had the lowest per student funding in the state. Equalization attempts to begin to rectify those numbers.
Though things seem to be looking up for the students that remain, the question lingers as to what will happen to those students whose programs were lost. Columnist Danny Grace, a fellow SMC student, and I will be writing on this topic in the coming weeks.
Time will tell if the governor will indeed maintain his commitment to this system and perhaps more importantly, if an increased budget will be enough to begin healing the wounds of the last tempestuous school year. (Deb Helt is a college student who lives in Los Angeles.)
Originally published in the Santa Monica Daily Press print edition on March 5, 2004. Read the original PDF.