Community College Students Call Hike in Tuition Painful

“Man,” Latario Rachal of Carson gasped, taking the news like a hard blow to the midsection.

The 19-year-old El Camino College football player had just learned that his college tuition will jump 66% next semester, thanks to the new state budget Gov. Pete Wilson signed into law on Wednesday. Instead of paying $6 a unit with a $60 maximum, Rachal’s mother--who picks up his tuition--will now be charged $10 a unit with no maximum.

“I guess she’ll try to pay it but it’ll hurt her,” Rachal said of his mother, a divorced office clerk who is putting her son through El Camino in the hope he can win an athletic scholarship to a four-year college.

The tuition increase comes after a lengthy state budget crisis in which the governor and legislators, fearing voter backlash if they raised taxes, adopted deep spending cuts and fee hikes, including the new tuition costs at community colleges.

Critics call the tuition hike nothing more than a tax on students. Whatever it is called, the result is an added financial burden for students--in some cases enough to prompt them to leave school.

Among those saying they will have to bow out is 26-year-old Stephanie Walton of Torrance, whose tuition is being increased to $50 a unit from the current $6 because she already has a college degree. Walton has a BA degree in communications and is taking journalism and Spanish-language classes in hopes of getting a reporting job at a newspaper.

But with the fee increase, those plans will have to be put on hold.

“I really can’t afford that now,” she said. Even though she is holding down two jobs, she added, “I’m just barely scraping by.”

Community College Chancellor David Mertes said 124,000 of the state’s 1.5 million community college students in the state already have college degrees, meaning they will have to pay the higher fee.

Eighteen-year-old Lakeysha Wells of Los Angeles feels relatively secure, despite the tuition hike--from $6 a unit to $10, in her case. She said she and her parents, who are helping put her through college, still have enough money to cover the added tuition costs.

That does not mean Wells is worry-free, however. The tuition increase comes just four months after she lost her job: In the April 29 civil unrest, the video store where she worked was burned.

“Everything’s gone. I don’t ever think they’re going to rebuild it,” Wells said, adding that a record store has promised to hire her--as soon as its sales rebound.

Wells’ friend and study companion, Nikesha Herron, 17, also of Los Angeles, said that her parents are “upset about the tuition hike” but that they know community college is still cheaper than a four-year school. Both young women are studying to become registered nurses.

Stacey Senn, 20, of Rancho Palos Verdes said her job as a part-time swimming instructor, which pays $5.50 an hour, is not enough to cover the added tuition costs.

“I’m going to try to ask my dad to see if he’ll pay, but I don’t know if he will,” said Senn, whose parents are divorced. Her mother, a sales clerk, does not have the money, Senn said.

Eighteen-year-old Richard Zapf of Torrance, who hopes to go into medicine or biological research, said he will find the money for the added tuition costs.

“There’s not much choice,” said Zapf, the only son of a barber and a homemaker. “I’m not going to drop out or anything.”

The tuition hike means that freshman Jennifer Wiley of Redondo Beach might have to stay in a community college longer than planned. It definitely means that she must find a part-time job soon, she said.

“My dad is the only one who works and he’s in aerospace,” said Wiley, voicing the fears faced by many families dependent on the rapidly shrinking aerospace industry.

Wiley said her parents are also helping her older brother through college. An honors student, she hoped to transfer to a University of California campus within 18 months of enrolling at El Camino.

Freshman Chava Peebles, who is 18 and lives in Redondo Beach, said she has not yet told her single, head-of-household mother about the tuition hike.

“She’s going to bitch. She’s going to complain. She may even write a letter,” Peebles said of her mother. But she will pay the tuition, Peebles said, “because she knows how much I want to go to college.”

For Ryan Wilson, a freshman from Torrance and a part-time meat clerk at an Albertson’s, the tuition hike simply means prioritizing.

“It’s just going to make it a little harder,” said the stocky 18-year-old, an honors English student. “You’re going to have to decide if you want to go out and have good time, (you have to) balance that with getting an education.”