Budget Cuts Harm Community Colleges

“Be Fair to Two-Year Colleges” (editorial, April 3) and “Community College Budget Cuts Offer Davis a Refresher Course in Reality” (April 3) properly exposed Gov. Gray Davis’ foolish slashing of community college budgets. Both pointed out those colleges’ important vocational programs and the opportunity they provide for poor students. A crucial item that did not get addressed is that tens of thousands of students (not just poor but also middle class and wealthy) go to community colleges because they know the transfer general education courses are equal to, if not better than, the lower-division programs at the California State University and University of California schools.

For three decades I have noticed that the upper-division grade-point averages of community college transfer students tend to be slightly higher than those of students who started at the UCs, campuses whose reputations instead are dependent on top-notch graduate programs based on massive libraries, world-renowned laboratories and research professors focused primarily on graduate students. That is why the taxpayer pays over three times more to educate a UC student than a community college student.

Davis’ cutting of community college budgets means the taxpayer will pay even more to educate freshman and sophomore college students at the CSUs and UCs who could not find community college classes at a time when the number of those classes should be increased.

Gary Hoffman

Professor of English

Orange Coast College

*

Your editorial falls sadly short of understanding the magnitude of the problem. For your editorial writer, Davis and myself, the move from $11 to $24 per credit unit may be nothing, but for the poor people who are trying to lift themselves into the middle class it will be overwhelming. When tuition went from free to only $5, 25% of the student body was lost.

It “may sound like soaking the poor,” your editorial writer said. It not only sounds like it -- it is in fact soaking the poor. But worse, it will deprive our society of productive middle-class people, the kind who make America great. Compare, if you will, how many students are in the community colleges versus how many are in the UC and CSU combined. The governor should get his priorities straight.

Samuel G. Platts

Sylmar

*

Thank you for your positive editorial in support of community colleges. While I agree that “the community colleges will have to absorb some pain and should accept Davis’ proposal to more than double student fees,” I also note that when the UCs or CSUs raise tuition, they keep the increase on their campuses. Under a quirk in state law, when the community colleges increase our fees, the state cuts our allocations by the same amount. Hence, there is no gain for the community colleges, only pain for the students. Is this fair?

Richard J. Follett

Professor of English

Los Angeles Pierce College