Community effort

Matt Day, an 18-year-old from Susanville, started his first semester at Butte College in August. He wasn’t prepared for the struggle.

Students crowded the back of his classrooms, especially in general-education courses, where it was less likely that students who were already enrolled would drop the class or change their schedule. By the end of his first day, Day found himself on waiting lists of up to 50 people.

“Unless you’re in the top five on a waiting list, you’re probably not going to get in,” he said. “That’s what an adviser told me.”

For many college students, getting classes is harder than ever. That’s true at Butte, too, where classrooms, buses and walkways are more crowded this semester, as the community college faces an increase in full-time enrollment and a decrease in financial resources.

The college has seen a 6 percent increase in full-time student enrollment since last September, according to a report released last week. Last year, the college saw an unprecedented 12 percent increase in enrollment, likely due to the collapsing economy, said Ken Meier, Butte College vice president for student learning and economic development.

And with more students on campus and an expected institutional budget cut of 15 percent, Meier said, the college has been outlining its priorities.

“The college is no doubt stressed and struggling,” he said. “We’ve been obsessed about budget cuts and enrollment all summer.”

The same is true for community colleges across California, where enrollment numbers are at all-time highs, California Community Colleges Chancellor Jack Scott announced recently. A record 2,913,735 students enrolled at the 110 community colleges during the 2008-09 academic school year—a 4.9 percent increase over the 2007-08 school year.

The increase follows a three-year surge in enrollment that has landed an additional 400,000 students in community college classrooms over the past four years.

Now, the system is facing an untimely $840 million in institutional budget cuts throughout the 2008-09 and 2009-10 school years, the chancellor stated, forcing campuses to reduce course offerings by as much as 20 percent.

Meier noted that the cuts come at a time when unemployment rates are high and state university systems are accepting fewer students. The community colleges are expected to turn away up to 250,000 students in the upcoming year due to a lack of financial resources, he said.

To offset budget cuts and to avoid laying off full-time employees, Butte College has organized its priorities with two things in mind: emphasizing general-education courses and preserving full-time jobs.

The college started by cutting 35 class sections this semester—a 2 percent decrease—most of which involved personal-interest and recreation courses, he said. Instead, a heavy focus has been placed on preserving certificate and degree programs, as well as “basic skills,” which include math, English and other general-education courses.

With fewer courses being offered and students increasingly focused on general education, the college has seen a 9 percent increase in enrollment per section, making it difficult for many students to find space in the classes they need, Meier said.

Students can expect class offerings to lighten even more in the fall, as the college is budgeted to cut up to 300 sections before the end of the 2009-10 school year, he said.

“We are trying to find ways to economize, focus on basic skills, while protecting as many jobs on campus as we can,” he said.

By spending conservatively over the past few years, the college’s board and president have established a “good-size reserve,” which helps the college protect jobs and students, Meier said.

Aside from a few part-time instructors whose sections were cancelled over the summer, no full-time employees have been laid off so far, and college President Diana Van Der Ploeg has “promised” not to lay anyone off before the holidays, Meier said. In an effort to avoid any layoffs whatsoever, the college has instituted a retirement incentive, which aims to encourage longtime employees older than 55 to consider retirement.

“We don’t want them to leave,” Meier said. “But we’d like to save some money.”

This year’s enrollment increase was expected, and while the enrollment forecast for next year is uncertain, Meier said administrators are preparing for the worst.

The college will continue to look for ways to offset costs while the state continues to balance its budget. In the meantime, the survival of the community college system seems dependent on the cooperation of administrators, faculty and students themselves.

“We’re doing more with less; I think the students know that,” Meier said. “And our faculty is taking on more students because they believe in our mission.”

Faculty and staff have been cooperative in allowing more students to squeeze into their classrooms, and lengthy waitlists have caused many students to stand in the back of the classroom during the first couple of weeks of school as they try to add classes, said Danielle Sowers, who transferred to Butte from Chico State this semester.

Sowers was one of the many people crowding the back of the room in an attempt to add general-education courses, and was lucky to add multiple classes to her schedule this semester.

“I was surprised,” she said. “[The instructors] were so accommodating and helpful—that’s not something I expected.”

Day, the freshman, ended up getting into one daytime general-education course and two evening courses, likely because evening slots are less competitive, he said. He noted that most of the students he spoke with during his hunt for classes ran into trouble because they had registered late in the summer, when most classes were already full.

“I’m definitely not going to wait next semester,” Day said. “I’m going to sign up right away.”