Wilson’s Fee Hike Plan for Community Colleges Attacked : Education: Ventura County students say costs will be prohibitive. Officials fear drop in enrollments and loss of funding.

A proposal by Gov. Pete Wilson to hike community college fees by $7 per unit could force many financially strapped Ventura County students to postpone or even cancel their dreams of higher education, local community college students and district officials said Friday.

“For some students who are barely making it out there, this could be it,” said Ramiro Hernandez, 22, a television production student at Oxnard College, who himself gets by on a state grant. “I could only manage it through receiving more financial aid, but I don’t know how much money (the state) has left.”

The fee increase is part of Wilson’s $55.4-billion spending plan for the next fiscal year, which he announced at a news conference Friday.

The governor proposed raising community college fees from $13 to $20 per unit, a change that could go into effect by the fall semester.

State officials raised student fees last spring from $6 to $10 per unit for students without bachelor’s degrees and $50 per unit for students with bachelor’s degrees. The fees were increased again last fall from $10 to $13 per unit for students without bachelor’s degrees.

After the most recent fee hike, enrollment dropped by an average of 12% at the Ventura County Community College District’s campuses in Moorpark, Oxnard and Ventura.

District board President Allan Jacobs predicted another drop of up to 10% next fall if the state levies the higher fees.

“I think this is very short-sighted on Wilson’s part,” Jacobs said. “I think, ultimately, you are doing damage to the economy. Students who need to get retrained will not be getting the education they need because of the (prohibitive) fees.”

District trustee Timothy Hirschberg said he hopes the trustees will band together to oppose the fee hike.

“I’m really distressed,” Hirschberg said. “It’s not in the interest of the colleges or the communities they serve, and it’s not in the interest of California to shut the door in the face of people trying to get their foot in the door.”

Last fall, alarmed by the colleges’ plunging enrollment, district officials launched a countywide advertising campaign to attract students back to the campuses, replete with shiny buttons and brightly colored posters. College officials are particularly concerned about maintaining enrollment, because if the figures drop below those set by the state for full funding, the district could lose money.

As of Jan. 6, 1994, pre-enrollments for the spring semester had dropped only 1.5% from what they had been on Jan. 6, 1993, said district Chancellor Thomas Lakin. Registration officially begins Monday.

But despite the relatively small decline in pre-enrollments, the district could lose up to $5 million from its $63-million budget if this spring semester’s enrollment fails to surpass last year’s, Lakin said. Further enrollment loss next fall could cost the district another $2 million to $3 million, he said.

Wilson’s proposed fee hike would make up more than one-third of a proposed 3.4% budget increase that Wilson would award the community colleges under his budget for 1994-95.

Some local district trustees, however, scoffed at the proposed increase, saying that extra funds from the state always seem to be targeted at specific programs that do little or nothing to ease the district’s economic troubles.

“If Wilson’s going to give us extra money, it’s going to be categorical,” Hirschberg said. “When they give us extra money, they always tell us how to spend it.”

For the moment, though, nothing is set in stone--or law--and district officials and students vowed to fight the fee increases all the way to the Statehouse.

Kenn Woodward, 46, a history student at Ventura College, said he hopes the threat of a fee hike will propel angry students into organized, campus protests.

“I will have to work more, which means I have to cut back on study hours to afford to go to school,” said Woodward, who works about 20 to 30 hours a week as a cabinetmaker. “In a sense, they’re cutting into my education because they’re making my education more difficult to obtain.”