Area Colleges Fear Higher Fees Will Cut Enrollment : Education: Undergraduates’ will pay from $6 to $10 per unit. Students with bachelor’s degrees or higher will pay $50.

Fee increases may cut enrollment at Ventura County’s three community colleges beginning in January, district officials said Tuesday.

“Any time you increase fees, you’re affecting access,” board President Pete Tafoya said. “You’re cutting people out of the educational process.”

Next semester, fees will jump from $6 to $10 per unit for undergraduates and to $50 per unit for students with bachelor’s degrees or higher. Although Oxnard College President Elise Schneider warned that “the verdict is still out” on how higher fees will affect enrollment in the 31,000-student district, college officials predicted some impact as early as next year.

About 25% of the students enrolled in the nursing program at Moorpark College have bachelor’s degrees, said Moorpark College President James Walker, predicting that some students would drop out “because they simply can’t afford it.”

Districtwide, 674 students have bachelor’s degrees, said Ventura College President Jess Carreon. Many are retraining for new jobs or learning skills that would help them in their present careers, Carreon said.

Although the fee increases may drive away some students, more students who would ordinarily go to four-year state universities will attend the community colleges, Chancellor Thomas Lakin said.

But even if the number of students rises, funding cuts from the state are forcing the district to become more efficient, Lakin said.

“We’re not as able to offer as many sessions of English 101 at 9 o’clock,” he said. “We are forced to be more effective and efficient with the resources we have available.”

Community colleges used to educate students primarily for four-year universities, Lakin said. Later, they began offering more vocational classes.

Now they are in transition, Lakin said. They will continue to be transfer institutions and to train people for careers but will also work more closely with private industry and government, he said.

“The private industry has not been a major vehicle for the community colleges as it has for the four-year universities,” Tafoya said. “I think you’ll see that community colleges will work more with our own local businesses” because their work forces come from the schools.

And as funding from Sacramento dwindles, more community colleges will seek the help of private industry, Carreon said.

Contracting with companies to educate their employees, depending more on college foundations and seeking more federal and private grants are some of the funding methods to which community colleges will be turning, Carreon said.

The district is already looking to next year’s budget with some trepidation. This year, it was able to avoid cutting classes and laying off people, but less money is expected from the state next year, Lakin said.

Tafoya grimly predicted that another proposal would surface next year to increase community college fees. The University of California and California State University have been hit with significant hikes the past few years, and community colleges are beginning to be targeted, he said.

“We already have trustees statewide who are lobbying their legislators to prevent such an increase,” Tafoya said.

But future financial woes are anticipated, he said. “There are a lot of hard decisions to be made.”