Editorial: More Options for Students

Ventura County Star | March 8, 2007

Community College Reforms

The future of Ventura County 's three community colleges is at stake — both financially and educationally — in two simultaneous trends.

First, there has been a petition drive to recalculate tax funding for community colleges in California . Under Proposition 98, funding for community colleges is based on enrollment in grades K-12, but that formula has shorted the colleges — and will increase that shortage in the future — unless the petition measure appears on the 2008 state ballot and is approved by the voters.

Prudently, the measure only needs a 51 percent majority, not the 67 percent required for some school funding proposals.

Ventura County has been at the forefront of the petition drive, led by Larry Miller, president of the Ventura County Community College District board. Statewide, enough petitions have been submitted to qualify the measure for the ballot, pending verification that 598,105 of those signatures are valid.

As an example of the proposal's effect, under the current funding formula, Ventura County colleges would receive $160.6 million for the 2009-10 school year, but would get $170.5 million under the revised formula. Without the ballot measure, that gap would continue to shortchange the colleges increasingly in future years.

It should be kept in mind that this recalculation would have no adverse effect on K-12 funding. That would continue to be determined by the formula in Proposition 98.

The other trend in California community colleges is a resurrection of what once were called "vocational" classes — now updated to "career technical education."

Unlike the testing done to qualify students for a four-year college or university, these are courses designed to prepare a student for a job.

Jim Aschwanden of the California Agricultural Association told The Associated Press, "We have a generation of students that can answer questions on tests, they know factoids, but they can't do anything."

Since there are more than 1 million students enrolled full time in California's community colleges — plus another 1.5 million part time — and since only about 15 percent of them go on to a four-year college, the vast majority of them need more consideration in different course offerings.

Currently, private colleges are attracting these students as a market for enrollment — with frequent ads on TV. The catch there is that students may be helped to apply for and receive federal student loans to pay tuition, but then may be left with no job and thousands of dollars in debts.

Despite the fact California ranks 45th of the 50 states in community-college funding, community college remains the best educational bargain around — with tuition now about $600 a year, and waivers for students in need. But to enroll and stay in school, students who aren't preparing for college must see some concrete payoff at the end, in the form of a job.

Community colleges need our help in providing the necessary training for honorable trades.

From World War II through Korea, Vietnam and the Persian Gulf wars, military veterans have used our community colleges to resume their education and go on to careers that enhanced their lives and their communities. Someday, the veterans from the Iraq war will be coming home, and we must provide them that opportunity — or better yet, something even more practical in the way of learning.

The petition to recalculate funding and the resurrection of vocational classes, taken together, could remove the accent from mere enrollment at the beginning of a community college education, and place it on success at the end.

 

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