Assembly Committee on Higher Education Honorable Carol Liu, Chair Informational Hearing

Transcription

1 Assembly Committee on Higher Education Honorable Carol Liu, Chair Informational Hearing Remarks by Dr. Martha Kanter President, De Anza College Full Access to Higher Education for all Californians February 4, 2003, 1:30 P.M. State Capitol, Room 437

2 Assemblymember Liu and Assembly Education Committee Members, thank you for the opportunity to provide you with comments about access to higher education for all Californians from the campus perspective. My remarks will respond to the three questions posed for this hearing. QUESTION #1 Current statute promises access to education and the opportunity for educational success, for all qualified Californians. Is this promise being met today? Can this promise be met next year, in 2005, and in 2010? 1 Your first question asks whether the statutory promise of access to educational opportunity for all qualified Californians is being met today. My answer is no. The promise has been broken. What is now on the horizon is the long-term demise of what has historically been the most successful system of higher education in this country. In fact, the 2000 Census reported nationally that Americans accrue economic, social and personal benefits from each additional year of education they receive and, further, that median earnings for people with B.A. degrees were over 1.7 times the median earnings for people with high school diplomas (Census Bureau CPRP60-209, 2002). Two thirds of the CSU graduates are supplied by California s community colleges. Let me now show you what s happened on our campus. De Anza College serves more than 25,000 students each quarter, and about 45,000 students annually. Over the past few years, enrollment demand has increased 3-5% a year. Last year, we provided classes for these students and did not get funded for 1,700 full-time equivalent students that we educated over and above the state-imposed cap. We are one of the low-revenue community college districts, receiving about $3500 per full-time equivalent student revenue from the state. Our general fund budget is more than $40 million dollars. This winter, we distributed federal and state financial aid loans and grants to more than 4,450 students or about 18% of our population. The federal government has designated our college as a minority-serving institution. Last year, we cut our operating budget $822,370 by reducing part-time faculty and staff, instructional aides, tutors, student help, peer counselors, staff development, and supplies in every department at the college. This cut represented an 18% reduction in our operating budget of $4.3 million that funds critical classroom support at a time when our enrollment, like most campuses in the state, has skyrocketed. Last year, we were able to preserve our full-time faculty and staff last year. In January of 2002, we slowed down all hiring and purchasing, and continued to consolidate our infrastructure support services. We took reductions in Matriculation, Technology and Telecommunications, and Staff Development funds that accounted for 12 positions that we absorbed into this year. In September of this year, we again reduced our budget by $855,000 on top of the $822,000 in cuts from the prior year. We had planned to offer about 2,500 classes each quarter, but in November and December, we eliminated 191 of those classes. We told more than 100 faculty that even though we had the students, we did not have the money to absorb the costs of instruction. We told the students that we could not give them the classes they needed. We were forced to cut 47 computer information systems classes, 2 engineering classes, 4 biology classes, 3 English and ESL classes, a history class, 2 humanities classes, 3 German classes, 8 business and accounting classes, 2 child development classes, 9 intercultural studies classes, 10 math classes, 4 speech and oral communications classes, 5 creative arts classes and 4 manufacturing and design classes, to name a few. We denied access to 5,829 students.

3 Last fall, we had 4,000 students enrolled in our computer science and networking classes about half of these students were retraining in order to reenter the workforce. The rest were first-time freshmen or continuing students completing university transfer, degree or certificate requirements. Now, in February 2003, at a time when our enrollment has again increased by 4%, we are preparing for a mid-year cut a further cut that will take funds out of this year s budget even though we are in the seventh month of the fiscal year with 70% of our funding spent. At this point, we are stopping critical services to students and preparing lay-off notices to reach a new 15-20% reduction goal and suspending the replacement of retiring faculty. Beyond this, we are preparing for draconian reductions in I might add that our district reserve of 5% will fund our payroll for about a month and a half only. Here is what Dr. Stephanie Sherman, our dean of Biological and Health Sciences, described in regard to the budget for her division: Two years ago, the Biological and Health Science Division began to reduce personnel and operations. For : We have reduced our operating budget by nearly 40% from the normal levels of previous years. We will have eliminated all hourly employees by June We have reduced open hours for students in our labs and learning center. Faculty and staff have solicited contributions of supplies from the community to make up some of the shortfalls in the supply budget. We have cancelled courses. We have projected additional reductions for that will result in a level that is 51% below our normal operating budget. We have stopped the Weekend College, which means that students who could only attend Friday night and Saturday classes will not be able to attend at all. For we are planning to DECREASE the admissions (and thus, the graduations) of the state s future nurses. Instead of admitting them three times a year, we will only admit them twice a year. We may also have to decrease the number of students admitted each quarter from 30 to 24 students. We are also planning to DECREASE the admission (and thus, the certification) of students in our health technology programs, instead of admitting them three times a year to admitting them once a year. As a result, fewer nurses, physical therapist assistants, phlebotomists, medical assistants and related allied health professionals will graduate, and we will be unable to fill the state and national shortages in the health care fields. Additionally, we are turning away displaced workers who are in need of retraining into these health care fields. We will be turning away even more pre-health care students as we also cut the prerequisite courses for these programs due to budget constraints. If there is a most disturbing category in regard to student access, it falls under the topic of disproportionate impact. 2

4 I cannot explain to our faculty, staff and students why the Governor s proposed budget would fund all UC and CSU students next year while eliminating funding for 96,000 full-time equivalent students, which equates to about 200,000 community college students who would be denied access to college. I cannot stand before our Academic Senate and reasonably explain why the state would fund UC, CSU and the California Community Colleges at different rates for the first two years of an undergraduate education, especially when more than two-thirds of baccalaureate degree grantees from CSU started in a community college, and especially since community college courses are equivalent to UC and CSU courses in the first two years. I cannot explain to our students and our community why UC and CSU can raise fees when necessary and use those fees to backfill some of their cuts, when our local boards of trustees cannot do so. I cannot explain to our staff why UC and CSU can use the revenue from their fee increases to assist them in offsetting their reductions. I cannot explain to our Rotary Club, our Kiwanis Club or our Chamber of Commerce why we will have an additional hit of $2 million in our district for the PERS rate backfill while the PERS rate backfill is fully funded for K-12 and CSU. It makes no sense. I cannot tell our faculty and staff why the Education Code says that community colleges are provided 10.93% of the Proposition 98 guarantee and that each year, that promise has been whittled to a base amount for community colleges of 9.3% for next year, approximately $746 million below the 10.93% statutory level. I cannot explain to our community why disabled students and EOPS student programs were each targeted for a 45% reduction next year. Our most vulnerable students do not need further burdens imposed by the state. These cuts are in direct conflict with state and federal mandates. For example, even though the Disabled Student Services budget is targeted for a 45% cut, our deaf students must have interpreters and our blind students must have screen readers in the classroom. This fall, our college served 2,071 students with disabilities and EOPS students. Nationwide, nearly 50% of all persons with disabilities who completed undergraduate degrees and joined the workforce began their education in a California Community College. This fact makes the governor s proposal incomprehensible. Student outcomes for EOPS students are comparable. Both state and federal laws, including the Rehabilitation Act, the ADA, Title 5, and SB 105, require community colleges to provide access for students with disabilities and EOPS students. Franklin Delano Roosevelt probably said it best: The test of our progress is not whether we add to the abundance of those who have much. It is whether we provide enough to those who have little. These programs are ready to take their fair share of cuts in these difficult budgetary times, but these disproportionate reductions are unfair. Who will be denied access in such a volatile climate? At De Anza College we enroll 25-30% of all graduating seniors in our county. But we give our first enrollment priority to our continuing students, to our EOPS students who are full-time students on financial aid, and to our students with disabilities. We estimate at this point that hundreds of first-time freshmen will not be able to get the classes they will need this summer or next fall. 3

5 You ask: can the promise be met in the future? If you have the will to make the hard, disciplined choices about preserving access to higher education for the millions of our citizens who seek higher education through the doors of the California Community Colleges, students who are often California s most vulnerable citizens, then you can take some significant steps toward a solution that won t keep putting off the problem or shifting funds from one year to the next, as is being proposed with the deferral of apportionment payments from June to July 2003, adding an additional $105 million for community colleges to cut out of the budget. Can the statutory promise of access for all qualified Californians be met in 2005 or 2010? It must. If we are brave enough and smart enough to create a stable and predictable base funding formula that does not disproportionately affect our disabled and disadvantaged students, if we can aggregate freshmen and sophomore year instructional, student support and infrastructure costs that are proportional to the funds spent for these same courses at UC and CSU, if we can reduce unnecessary mandates, and if we can increase fees and tax revenues in stable and predictable ways over time, then I think we might have a chance to preserve opportunity for all qualified adult Californians in our lifetime. QUESTION #2 What policy framework should guide the Legislature and the Assembly Higher Education Committee in maintaining the commitment to this promise? The second question asked what policy framework should guide the Legislature and the Assembly Higher Education Committee in maintaining the commitment to this promise. I ve been through several educational master plan revisions since I moved to California in the 1970s. The most visionary framework in my opinion is set in the 1960 Master Plan for Higher Education. After the Civil Rights Act was passed in 1968, the Master Plan reviews of the 1970s incorporated protections for our most vulnerable students EOPS and DSPS. Master Plan reviews in the 1980s affirmed in Promises to Keep that community colleges would serve students needing English as a Second Language and Basic Skills classes as an important part of our mission. At the end of the 1980s, we passed AB 1725 and ushered in a new funding formula that promised 10.93% of the K-14 budget. That promise has been broken for more than 10 years now. That s our base budget. Next year as I mentioned before, the Governor is proposing that community colleges receive 9.3%, a further decline in our base budget in addition to the massive categorical cuts that are proposed. Fees and lottery funds are a moot revenue point compared to our base apportionment. More broken promises. 4

6 QUESTION #3 What actions/policies are the institutions implementing to help sustain access? The third question regards what actions/policies are the institutions implementing to help sustain access. We cannot sustain access because the Governor and Legislature have approved reductions to reduce access, and we have no choice but to reduce programs accordingly. As I said before when I shared the classes we have cut, those classes are the very ones that support our mission of providing exemplary transfer, vocational, basic skills and ESL educational programs for our students. We don t have the base funding to continue to offer them. California Community Colleges are funded at a rate that is less than half of the national average. Let me close my remarks with a few recommendations. I was heartened to hear all of the Assembly Budget Subcommittee members ask for solutions at the December hearing I attended. So here are some solutions for your consideration: 1. Give California s Community Colleges what the law says we should have: 10.93% of the Proposition 98 guarantee. Whatever funding there is for K-12 and community colleges, give us our fair share. Don t bring our 108 colleges down to 9.3% of the statutory guarantee. Make good on this promise. 2. Beyond this immediate step, provide leadership to ensure predictable, stable long-term base funding for community colleges that includes reasonable, predictable fee increases so students and their families can plan for the costs of college. If you fully fund UC and CSU students, you should do the same for community colleges. Further, taxpayers deserve fairness in paying for the costs of education. Undergraduate education at the freshmen and sophomore years should utilize the same rate for UC, CSU and the California Community Colleges. 3. If you reduce our budget, then don t tell us to grow at the same time. Do one or the other. If the state has fewer funds, then take steps to protect our base, and concomitantly, lower our obligations. Funding growth makes no fiscal sense. As the budget declines, the base should decline accordingly. 4. Remove the numerous education mandates that are burdensome to community colleges, but protect our most vulnerable students. We can give you a long list of mandates to eliminate. However, we ask that you do not pick and choose among our student programs, as is proposed for the disabled and the disadvantaged. Tell us how much funding you have and we ll downsize to fit the dollars while preserving our student and program mix as best we can. 5. Restore the authority of local community college boards of trustees to levy local taxes and/or fees, and return these revenues back to the districts. Don t use them to offset other state agency shortfalls. 6. Give us a rolling deferral of the Proposition 98 cuts that we cannot absorb and fully fund the PERS backfill as you are doing for K-12 and CSU. In closing, please don t create any more policies or make any more promises that will be broken. Thank you for the opportunity to share these recommendations with you. 5