Countywide : Hard Times Predicted for College Students

The county’s college students will suffer financially this year through education budget cuts likely to stem from the Gramm-Rudman-Hollings Act and President Reagan’s budget, a county community college official said Tuesday.

Barbara Hammerman, a trustee of the North Orange County Community College District, was a delegate last week to the Washington legislative conference of the American Assn. of Community and Junior Colleges and the national Assn. of Community College Trustees.

In an interview Tuesday, Hammerman said that proposed education-budget cuts by the Gramm-Rudman-Hollings Act and Reagan were key issues at the conference. The Gramm-Rudman measure, which seeks to balance the federal budget by 1991, has already sliced $153 million from federal Pell Grants for college students.

While California community college students are charged only $50 tuition per semester, many students seeking federal education grants and loans use the money for two years at the community college level and then transfer to four-year universities to complete a bachelor’s degree. Hammerman estimated that 900 Orange County students would be denied federal education aid, including Pell Grants, because of the current round of budget cuts.

“Education must, of course, take some of the cuts,” Hammerman said. “But the feeling at the legislative conference was that not everything was yet on the table (to get an equal share of budget cutting).” She said the federal government should not shield some areas of the budget, while slicing into education.

Hammerman said she is also concerned that the federal government may greatly reduce, or eliminate altogether, educational aid to military veterans, commonly called the GI Bill. She said that the legislative conference in Washington was told that Reagan’s budget for next year may abolish the GI Bill.