Fee Triggers Greater Drop in Two-Year College Rolls

Public two-year colleges in most states typically charge between $400 and $1,000 a year in tuition, yet their enrollments are holding steady, according to a national survey by the American Assn. of Community and Junior Colleges released here this week.

That stability in most states is in sharp contrast to the recent experience in California, where a first-ever $100-a-year tuition this school year accelerated an enrollment decline that began in 1982.

Nationwide, the two-year colleges enrolled 4.8 million students last fall, down slightly from 1983 but identical to the totals for 1980 and 1981, the report said.

California’s community college system is by far the nation’s largest--enrolling more than one in five of all two-year college students nationwide--but it has been undergoing a steady drop in financing and students recently.

Down to 1.16 Million

The number of students attending California community colleges has fallen from 1.43 million in 1981 to about 1.16 million last fall.

California’s fee is still “by far the lowest tuition in the nation,” said Dale Parnell, president of the colleges’ association.

However, college officials attending their annual convention this week in San Diego said they were hard-pressed to see a clear link between the tuition rate and the enrollment trend nationwide. Parnell said community college enrollment usually fluctuates with the economy.

“We always have a slight downturn when we come out of a recession,” he said. But, he added, “I don’t know how to explain what’s happening in California.”

Illinois, which has the second largest two-year college network, charges students $572 a year at most campuses, and its enrollment fell 1% this fall to 360,000. In Florida, most community colleges charge $540 a year and enrollment rose 1% this year to 212,000.

In the West, Washington state’s public two-year colleges charge $580 a year and enrollment rose by 5% last fall to 129,000. Arizona, with a tuition rate of $336 a year at most campuses, went down by 2%, to 114,000 students.

At the low end on the fee scale, Texas and North Carolina have community colleges that charge as little as $160 a year, according to the association survey, while Ohio, Massachusetts and New York have colleges that charge $1,500 or more. Yet in all five states, enrollment has fluctuated only a percentage point up or down in recent years.

Still, several California legislators said this week that they want to repeal the new fee because it has hindered enrollment, particularly in the state’s urban areas.

“We said from the very beginning that any barrier like this would have a chilling effect on some people, and what we’ve seen is a drastic drop in the urban colleges,” said Richard Alatorre (D-Los Angeles), who along with 20 other legislators has introduced a bill to end the $50-per-semester fee.

Alatorre said he expects his bill to be heard next month during debate on the state budget.

Many Students Needy

Alatorre noted that urban college students are typically poor and from minority groups, and many are women heading households.

“I think we should be doing everything we can to encourage them to get advanced education or training,” he said. “That’s why we should remove this financial barrier.”

Parnell, however, said in an interview that community colleges can attract more students “if we do a better job of defining who we are.”

“We have sometimes emphasized our open-door policy but forgot to emphasize our exit standards,” said Parnell, who headed community colleges in San Diego and Stockton before becoming president of the national association in 1981.

At the convention, which ends today, he encouraged college officials to put more emphasis on the two-year “associate degree.”

“We need to convince employers, universities and even students that the degree has meaning,” he said.