College Education

Facing a state funding cut of up to 10%, California's community colleges will enroll 400,000 fewer students next fall and slash thousands of classes to contend with budget shortfalls that threaten to reshape their mission, officials said Wednesday. The dire prognosis was in response to the breakdown in budget talks in Sacramento and the likelihood that the state's 112 community colleges will be asked to absorb an $800-million funding reduction for the coming school year — double the amount suggested in Gov. Jerry Brown's current budget proposal.

President Obama gave personal testimony on the experience of carrying burdensome college loans today, drawing a chorus of “amens” from a student audience at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. In a pitch for his latest legislative priority, Obama cited statistics about the rising cost of higher education but also got rather personal with the crowd of university students. “I didn't just read about this,” Obama said. “I didn't just get a policy briefing on this.

Dear Liz: I'm facing the end of child support and need to finance my son's college education, plus I have some home maintenance costs looming. Should I get a home equity loan or line of credit (assuming I can qualify) to pay off these pressures, or should I raid my retirement fund? I am 60, make about $80,000 a year and have no debt besides the mortgage and a car loan, but I have only about $100,000 in retirement accounts. (I had to wipe out my savings once before in a two-year spell of unemployment.

It was the week before my 23rd birthday when it hit me. "You know," I said casually to my mom as we drove into town to get pedicures, "I don't think I've hung out with anyone my age in over a month. " It was true. Almost a year out of college and here I was, living at home and socializing decades above my age group. I shopped for groceries and made dinner every night. I watched "The Daily Show"with my mom and went to a Wilco concert with my dad. I took my grandma to movies nominated for best picture and, for the first (and hopefully only)

Dear Liz: I have some very important questions regarding my son who is going to be attending a private university next year. He is going to be a student athlete (he golfs), which does not help very much financially. We're shocked at the cost and do not have enough saved. We were counting on selling our home and downsizing to pay for his education, but got caught up in the real estate downturn. We need some help and advice on how we can get access to the free money that I know is out there.

It's not unusual for government agencies with budget problems to start outsourcing services to private industry. Computer maintenance, prison management, landscaping — all are among the services that state or local bureaucrats have handed off to private firms over the years. What about college education? It turns out that California is trying to outsource our public higher education system to the for-profit college industry. What is surprising is that this is happening without any evidence that the affected students would be well served.

Timing is everything ? especially, it seems, when it comes to paying for college. The amount of money parents can save for their children's higher education depends heavily on the performance of the stock market when the kids are growing up, a new study shows. Tap your college savings after a good run in the market and you probably will be in good shape. But pull out the money after a bear market and you may have to hock the family heirlooms. Imagine that a family began stowing away $1,000 a year when a child was born in 1979.

Samuelson's article on the "cheapening" of college education was a slap in the face to any hard-working, overextended, debt-ridden "middle-class" student who, in pursuit of a better future, already faces rising tuition costs and seemingly endless opposition from both the federal and state governments. "Too easy," indeed!LOUISE ECKELS West Covina

Dear Liz: We have a second home close to a lake that we bought in 2002 for $370,000. It could have sold for $1 million at the peak of the market but is now worth about $800,000. We owe $100,000 on a mortgage with four years left until it's paid off, but the payments are a hardship and barely manageable. I don't expect prices in the area to improve much in the next several years, and they may decline more. Since I could sell the house now and get back all the money I ever put into it, I figure that every dollar I pay on it from now on is a dollar of profit burned.

Dear Liz: I have some very important questions regarding my son who is going to be attending a private university next year. He is going to be a student athlete (he golfs), which does not help very much financially. We're shocked at the cost and do not have enough saved. We were counting on selling our home and downsizing to pay for his education, but got caught up in the real estate downturn. We need some help and advice on how we can get access to the free money that I know is out there.

So, of course, in the wake of the latest college sports scandal, there echoes the latest college sports pablum. Oh, those poor underprivileged children from the University of Miami. If only the NCAA allowed the football players to be paid, a sleazy booster wouldn't have been able to buy them. Oh, the hypocrisy, the unfairness, the shame. In the words of a surely weeping Keith Jackson … whoa, Nellie. Did you actually read the Yahoo Sports report on the many impermissible benefits alleged to have been doled out to the Miami football and basketball players by a Ponzi scheme crook named Nevin Shapiro?

Thousands of teenagers living in California illegally were brought to this country by their parents as young children. Some of them have worked hard and done well in school; on both human and practical grounds, it would be wrong to put a college education out of financial reach by requiring them to pay higher, non-resident tuition to attend the state's public colleges. It wouldn't just be bad for the students themselves, who bear no responsibility for their illegal status. The public also loses when it pays for a bright student's education through high school but then does not allow that student to become a college-educated adult capable of contributing more fully to the economy and society.

Early this year I was asked, as the chancellor at UCLA, to prepare the campus for nearly $100 million in budget cuts. It was our share of the $500-million reduction proposed for the University of California system in Gov. Jerry Brown's budget proposal. And that's the good news. As we all know, more extreme reductions lie ahead because of the state's budgetary crisis and political stalemate. The governor has attempted to forestall those further reductions by asking voters to approve extensions of several state taxes, taxes that Californians already pay. Thus far, there are not enough legislators to support putting the extensions up for a vote on the June ballot.

Facing a state funding cut of up to 10%, California's community colleges will enroll 400,000 fewer students next fall and slash thousands of classes to contend with budget shortfalls that threaten to reshape their mission, officials said Wednesday. The dire prognosis was in response to the breakdown in budget talks in Sacramento and the likelihood that the state's 112 community colleges will be asked to absorb an $800-million funding reduction for the coming school year — double the amount suggested in Gov. Jerry Brown's current budget proposal.

Dear Liz: My son will be going to a for-profit technical school about 120 miles away from home. Unfortunately, we have not saved any money for his college education. What are our best options for borrowing to pay for his college education, which will cost about $92,000 for four years? He is not eligible for any financial aid other than federal student loans. Our daughter will graduate debt free with her bachelor's degree in December. Since we concentrated on her education first, our son kind of got left behind.

Timing is everything ? especially, it seems, when it comes to paying for college. The amount of money parents can save for their children's higher education depends heavily on the performance of the stock market when the kids are growing up, a new study shows. Tap your college savings after a good run in the market and you probably will be in good shape. But pull out the money after a bear market and you may have to hock the family heirlooms. Imagine that a family began stowing away $1,000 a year when a child was born in 1979.