California's Budget Crisis

The definition of "community college" and the reasons for the community college system have been questioned given the budgetary constraints being placed on the entire educational structure in California. The state legislature addressed the issue in 1988 when it systematically revised California's Master Plan for Higher Education, an omnibus community college reform bill signed into law that year. The 1988 reforms set priorities for the community college system as follows:

1) vocational education and equally the education of students planning to transfer to the California State University or the University of California;

3) continuing education or "community service" instruction.

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Those who support the higher fees state that it is wrong for people who are here illegally to get the same cost break as legal residents. After 1985, illegal immigrants who could demonstrate that they had lived in California for at least a year and intended to stay were treated the same as other residents as far as tuition was concerned. This had been in response to an earlier court decision giving illegal immigrants these rights. After 1990, though, the situation was reversed (Merl, May 14, 1992 A1). The community colleges have had to deal with a state-imposed funding cap, and as a result the 107 community college campuses were forced to dip into their discretionary funds simply to handle the student load they already had. The budget of a community college is allocated as follows: 80 percent is committed, and 20 percent can be spent on staff development, equipment, and supply purchases or on faculty trips. Pasadena City college can again serve as an example, for the campus now has 13 percent more students than it has money to educate. Plans to expand vocational education and to buy new equipment have been shelved. The cutbacks have been seen as an attack on the community-college mission to provide inexpensive vocationa
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Approximate Word count = 1931
Approximate Pages = 8 (250 words per page)

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