Mission Only 2-Year L.A. College to Gain Students

Tiny Mission College in San Fernando was the only member of the Los Angeles Community College District to gain enrollment this fall, says a report to the district’s trustees.

Mission, with 3,419 students enrolled in classes, recorded a 2% gain from last fall. District officials credited the increase to a program initiated in September that allows working adults to earn an associate in arts degree in five semesters instead of the traditional 10.

Enrollment at the two other San Fernando Valley campuses of the community college district fell, says the report, which was prepared by the district staff and presented to the board Wednesday.

Enrollment at Los Angeles Pierce College in Woodland Hills fell 9.8% to 17,393. A year ago, 19,286 students registered for classes at Pierce, the report said.

Los Angeles Valley College in Van Nuys posted a 9.4% decrease in enrollment, with only 16,284 students attending classes this fall. Last fall, 17,973 students were enrolled, the spokesman said.

Decline Overall

Overall, enrollment at the nine-campus community college system dropped 9.1%. This fall, total enrollment on the nine campuses is 93,026. Last year, the system had 102,313 students, down from a 1982 peak of 136,000.

Drops in community college enrollment have been attributed to declines in the birthrate, a $50-per-semester fee imposed in 1984 and fierce competition for students among the community colleges and the University of California and California State University systems.

Under Mission’s new PACE program, or Project for Adult College Education, students each semester take 12 units, which are earned in four classes. They attend class one evening a week, watch a two-hour lecture on the Los Angeles Unified School District’s television station, Channel 58, once a week and attend Saturday classes for eight consecutive weekends.

Nearly 300 students, almost 100 more than expected, had enrolled in PACE at the beginning of the fall semester.

Although Mission’s program is still in the fledgling stage, a profile of the students attracted to the evening-and-weekend program has already been established, said Fred Obrecht, PACE director. Three-quarters of PACE students are women. Their average age is 32 and all of them work, he said.

“It just goes to show that there is a real need out there for college courses that are offered at times convenient for working people,” Obrecht said during an interview Thursday.

Obrecht said he and his staff take the success of Mission’s PACE program as a sign that the beleaguered community college district is doing at least something right.

“The community colleges have been so maligned that we all feel that we’ve been doing something wrong,” Obrecht said. “The success of PACE shows that there is something that we can do to attract people.”

Norm Schneider, director of communications for the community college district, said Mission’s modest gain in enrollment probably will not mean that it will fare better than other campuses in taking its share of $8.2 million in budget cuts made by the community colleges district board for the 1985-86 school year.

“Enrollment increases in one year do not have any effect on the budget process for that year,” Schneider said. “And budget cuts are made on a districtwide basis, not on a campus-by-campus basis. The increase at Mission probably won’t mean a whole hell of a lot.”