Colleges Hope Lower Fees Will Bring Back Students

Lower community college fees for adults who hold bachelor’s degrees could spur thousands of students who had dropped out of the two-year colleges the past few years to re-enroll, college administrators say.

The new fees for students with bachelor’s degrees go into effect Jan. 1, reducing the cost from the $50 per unit--imposed by the state Legislature in 1993--to the $13 per unit paid by other students. A typical community college course consists of three units.

“It means that a guy who got his degree 10 years ago but wants to go to community college to train for a new career, his cost to take an average class will now decrease from $150 to $39,” said William E. Norlund, interim president of Mission College in Sylmar.

“It’s a huge help.”

At Valley College in Van Nuys, President Tyree Wieder said the change will boost the college’s enrollment. Valley, the largest college in the Los Angeles Community College District, and Pierce College in Woodland Hills have lost thousands of degree-holding students since the state raised costs.

“This is a tremendous opportunity for a lot of people who’ve already earned degrees but want to take classes at our community college,” Wieder said.

Valley College lost 1,057 degree-holding students between the 1992 fall semester and the 1993 spring semester. Wieder declined to estimate how many of those students will return, but said the announcements of the fee reduction will be prominently displayed in a mid-December mass mailing of the college’s spring class schedule.

Pierce College also lost more than 1,000 students after the higher fee went into effect. Like Valley College, Pierce is aggressively seeking to lure back its former population of degree-holding students. Recently, the college mailed letters to 4,500 former students, encouraging them to re-enroll, Pierce President Mary Lee said.

The Legislature raised community college fees for degree-holders in an attempt to generate revenue and make room for students who had not earned degrees.

But the plan backfired, said Ann Blackwood, legislative analyst for the Faculty Assn. of California Community Colleges in Sacramento. “The higher fee was projected to increase revenues dramatically, but students ended up just staying away,” Blackwood said. “Legislators underestimated how many of these students were struggling to pay any fee at all.”

After the higher fee took effect, an estimated 54,000 students with bachelor’s degrees dropped out of state community colleges between the fall of 1992 and spring of 1993, according to a study by the chancellor’s office of the statewide community college system. In Los Angeles community colleges, the number of degreed students fell from 8,347 in fall, 1992, to 3,427 in fall, 1993, because of the higher fee, according to a district report.

The $50 fee struck hard at degree-holding students who were attempting to retrain themselves for new careers, said Norlund of Mission College. But because legislators allowed the fee measure to “sunset”--revert to its former level--in January, Norlund now expects his school to regain about 500 degreed students who dropped out over the past two years.

Jeff Raigoza, a 33-year-old musician from Granada Hills, had intended to take construction courses at Los Angeles Trade-Technical College near Downtown to prepare for a second career. But when he learned of the higher cost for degree-holders, Raigoza, a bass guitar player with a bachelor’s degree in music from UCLA, delayed enrolling. Now, he said, “there’s no reason for me not to be there. Hopefully, I’ll be able to start in the spring.”

With fees scheduled to decrease, Margo Murman of Woodland Hills, a UC Davis graduate who has taken classes at Pierce College, said she’s considering re-enrolling.

“I was ecstatic when I found out they were dropping the fee,” she said. “I’ve been paying $50 a unit and it’s just killing me. I totally understand why people with degrees weren’t coming back.”

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Chandler is a Times staff writer; May is a special correspondent.