New Class Struggles on Campus : Community College Students Squeezed Out

Thousands of community college students in Orange County have learned that the best laid plans of mice and men oft go astray.

The lesson, however, did not come from John Steinbeck’s novel in English class. It’s being taught by the admissions office, which is turning thousands of students away from classes they need.

Sonja Bauman, for example, signed up for five classes required for her third semester in the allied health program at Orange Coast College in Costa Mesa. But all five were already filled.

Then there’s Tonya Ranck, 23, of Huntington Beach, who expected to graduate from Orange Coast this fall after 4 1/2 years but found herself shut out of the political science class she needs. Or take 38-year-old Tom Burke, a petroleum operator who went back to school for retraining: He wanted English but ended up with marketing.

“If you’re lucky, you get in,” explained Thomas Faust of Balboa as he waited in line Thursday to try to salvage his schedule. “If you’re not lucky, you don’t.”

Thousands of students across Orange County have found themselves out of luck this summer as they try to register at community colleges that have larger enrollments but smaller course offerings because of budget limitations.

With their fiscal futures still being decided in Sacramento, the county’s eight cash-starved community colleges are starting the school year by capping courses such as English, math and sciences, forcing students to carry fewer credits, take classes they don’t want or beg to get into the ones they desperately require.

“I can’t get out of here, I can’t get the classes I need,” said Ranck, who is trying to finish up at Orange Coast so she can go to UC Irvine. “It’s getting ridiculous.”

Bauman, a 28-year-old from Santa Ana who wants to study sleep disorders, said her education “just keeps getting delayed and delayed and delayed” because of overcrowding.

“It’s theoretically a two-year program, but there’s no way I’m going to get out of here in two years,” she said.

Thumbing through his marketing textbook as he waited to straighten out his registration paperwork, Burke was resigned to his fate: “I just figured what the heck, I need something to fill the space.”

Administrators at community colleges--which technically are not allowed to turn students away--say they are simply unable to meet demand this year.

Three-quarters of the more than 2,000 sections that began at Fullerton College this week are oversubscribed. Some were filled as early as July 28. More than 25,000 students have been wait-listed at Rancho Santiago College.

In the three schools that make up the Coast district, nearly half the 4,500 sections have been capped, and almost 25,000 names remain on the wait lists.

Even at Irvine Valley and Saddleback colleges, where course offerings have increased to match growing populations in South County, more than a third of the class sections closed before all students were satisfied.

“We’re under-serving the students,” said Sherrill Amador, vice president for instruction at Cypress College, who estimated that about 1,000 students were turned away from her school because funds were not available to provide them with classes. “But I don’t have the money, so you just keep what you have and hope it all works out and send the rest of them away.”

Legislators are currently debating various budget proposals that would hurt community colleges. One plan would quadruple student fees and discontinue funding for students further along in their educations, moves administrators say would devastate their operations.

Community colleges have already trimmed their offerings, slimmed their operating budgets and shrunk their faculties by not replacing retiring professors. Because of California’s budget impasse, they are now forced to start the school year unsure of what monies will be coming their way.

“The bottom line is we don’t know what the bottom line is,” said Vivian Blevins, chancellor of Rancho Santiago. “We just keep paring down and waiting for the final word.”

Students, too, are waiting--to see if their petitions for enrollment to overcrowded classrooms will be accepted.

“What else can I do?” said Kurt Smith, 22, a science major who was accepted to two of the four classes he asked for this fall at Orange Coast. “There’s one (chemistry) class and I can’t take it, so where does that leave me? Out in the cold, that’s where I’m left.”

Shut out of introductory psychology, Mike Voll of Huntington Beach simply walked around campus on opening day looking for classrooms with available seats. He found history, which he called “a horrible class” but a requirement that he has “to take sooner or later.”

Carol Engbloom, however, refused to settle for that. Wait-listed in all six of the Orange Coast classes for which she applied, Engbloom by Thursday had petitioned her way into three, including the coveted English 100, whose 58 sections had shut their doors on more than 1,000 students.

“They tell me to leave and I don’t leave,” said the 29-year-old Costa Mesa woman. “I had a guy tell me to get out of the chair, so I sat on the floor. He said you can’t sit on my floor, so I sat outside the door.”

“I got in,” Engbloom said triumphantly as others in the registration line looked on with envy. “If you’re really determined, you’ll get in.”

Class Struggle

Students seeking classes at the county’s eight community colleges are finding fewer options. As budgets are being debated in Sacramento, administrators have been forced to start waiting lists rather than adding classes to meet demand.

ENROLLMENT CLASSES **Wait- District Total *Change Listed Total *Change Closed Coast 43,197 +2% 24,982 4,575 -6% 46% North 35,760 +2% 6,547 5,068 Even 46% Rancho 21,366 +9% 25,371 2,916 -3% 40% Saddleback 29,075 +4% 15,760 2,693 +11% 45%

* Change from fall, 1991

** A student may be wait-listed for more than one class

Source: Individual college districts