Cuts Threaten the Mission of Community Colleges

With all the attention being paid to the draconian effects that
budget cuts will have on California’s citizens, it is worth stepping
back and thinking about the community-building role played by the
community college system — one of the state’s true jewels. While
much is written about the way community colleges help students advance
economically, the system’s role in bringing together people from
diverse backgrounds also contributes mightedly to social cohesion.

Last year, nearly three million students attended the 110 community
colleges in California, up by nearly 5 percent from the previous year.
That amounts to almost one out of every thirteen California residents.
That is a lot of folks. The system reflects California’s diversity;
more than one half of students are women and more than half are members
of a minority group. Nearly one-third are older than forty. At Laney
College, the East Bay’s largest campus, more than thirty different
languages are spoken in the homes of the students. And the students are
busy; eight in ten work at the same time they attend school.

There are as many different types of people at community colleges as
there are reasons for going there. Recently, the conservative
commentator David Brooks marveled at the student stew in these
institutions. He imagined children of immigrants and high-school
dropouts looking for a second chance mixing alongside former meth
addicts trying to get job training or fifty-year-olds taking classes
for enjoyment. Brooks is a supporter of President Obama’s “American
Graduation Initiative,” which aims to pump federal dollars, taken from
the subsidies received by student-loan providers, into community
college systems.

The individual stories of those who benefit from their time in this
system are inspiring. Take the story of two who moved from community
colleges to Cal’s prestigious Social Welfare program. Mike Ergo entered
Diablo Valley College in 2005 after being honorably discharged from the
Marine Corps. While in the service he saw the horrors of combat and
experienced Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder, and at college he received
counseling that he believes changed his life. In an interview, Ergo
said he “realized the power in counseling and respected how social
workers valued the idea of a client’s self-determination.” He hoped to
find a position where he could give back to his fellow vets in a
similar way. But he lacked a high-school diploma and thought it was
unlikely he could have gotten into a four-year university or college.
So he entered community college to brush up on his skills and explore
various academic paths. Community college enabled him to get into Cal,
and next spring he hopes to graduate with a degree in social
welfare.

Or take Traci Bernal, who, at 26, was enmeshed in a divorce and
facing life as a single mom. As a part-time day-care worker and
full-time mom, she took a leap and enrolled at Contra Costa College in
2005. Since she is the first in her family to attend college, her time
in school was self-actualizing. Bernal’s confidence grew, and she
developed an interest in learning. After seeing previously unimagined
vistas of possibilities, she applied to and was accepted at Cal.

But experiences like theirs are in jeopardy because public education
in California is in crisis across the board. Since the beginning of the
school year, after the Sacramento budget meltdown, the news has been
filled with stories about the state of the community college system. In
the East Bay, classes and whole sessions are being cut this academic
year. Meanwhile, down in San Diego, where state budget cuts have
resulted in more than 1,000 canceled class sections, increased fees,
and much-reduced student services, protesters rallied at City College
this month, calling for an end to the cuts that have put 20,000
students on waiting lists for classes.

Dire predictions abound. Ron Galatolo, a community college district
chancellor, told the San Jose Mercury-News that due to shrinking
state funding, some of the state’s colleges will actually go broke in
the foreseeable future.

While those in the system figure out how to weather this year’s
cuts, they anticipate fearsome funding cuts in next year’s budget and
beyond. This is the opposite of the way things should be with a
rational government. Money for community colleges should be counter
cyclically shepherded. The money should be structured in much the same
way that unemployment insurance is supposed to work, so that it is
there when it is needed most — like it is today.

Of course, ideological battles abound. Egged on by well-funded think
tanks, the right-left argument of our time concerns “outcomes” versus
“access.” Brooks and others claim that financial aid is basically
unimportant and that the real issue is making sure that folks come out
of the community college system perfectly tailored to serve as soldiers
in the corporate hierarchy. Given all the roles that community colleges
play, the argument over whether they should be subsidizing corporate
job training or serving as stepping stones to higher education is a
complicated one.

But access without support, which some on the right appear to
champion, is a losing proposition. Few institutions in our society
build skills for individual people while allowing citizens from such an
astonishing array of backgrounds to learn together. That is a beautiful
thing.