Community Colleges

Byron Herman rolled out of his dorm bed, yanked on snow pants and a beanie and stumbled across the parking lot to his 8 a.m. math class. By late morning, the 19-year-old Tehachapi student was on his snowboard, cutting crescent shapes into a mountain slope glistening under ice-blue skies. What was unusual about this scenario last month was that Herman attends not a select academy or elite university, but Cerro Coso Community College, a public two-year institution with a campus in Mammoth Lakes.

Mark Schneider and Lu Michelle Yin, proponents of for-profit higher education, go on the offensive in their April 11 Times Op-Ed article and criticize public community colleges for our graduation rates, which do need to improve. I have no quarrel with that fundamental truth. However, I do take issue with those who advocate for for-profit colleges, which have been publicly exposed for their own inadequate graduation rates. I hate to use the old cliche about glass houses, but Schneider and Yin are clearly throwing stones, particularly at those of us in the California community college system.

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.

Calling all moms Re "Romney is facing larger problem with female voters," April 13 We need to get real about Democratic strategist Hilary Rosen's comment that Ann Romney "never worked a day in her life. " Rosen wasn't saying anything derogatory about stay-at-home moms; she was speaking the truth that Ann Romney has never had to worry about paying the bills, putting food on the table, buying clothes and the cost and quality of her kids' day care. Mitt and Ann Romney are in the lucky percentage of Americans who don't know how hard many in the working class have it. They are clueless as to how financially-strapped families are dealing with today's crisis.

The governing board of California's community colleges approved reforms intended to streamline the path to graduation and transfer for thousands of students. The California Community Colleges Board of Governors endorsed the policies at a meeting Monday in Sacramento that featured more than three hours of public comment, including vigorous opposition from many students who argued that the plan would penalize low-income and other disadvantaged students. The reforms were suggested by a statewide task force that met for a year to consider how to improve outcomes for more than 2.6 million community college students at a time of dwindling state support.

California community colleges have shed more than 300,000 students since 2009 because the students cannot get into classes, and the toll is likely to grow unless the state reverses course and pumps more money into higher education. That bleak assessment was delivered last week by California Community Colleges Chancellor Jack Scott in a State of Community Colleges address at Pasadena City College. Scott served as president of the college from 1987 to 1995, before being elected to the state Legislature.

If you doubt your kid's ability to whip up a multi-grain pizza or some Italian cheese puffs, check out the cooking class offered at Ventura College this summer. Kids 9 to 12 can sign up for a two-hour, five-day cooking class where the young chefs prepare a complete meal each day and then sit down and eat it. The class is offered twice, beginning July 22 and Aug. 2; the class and materials cost $60.

In a pristine biochemistry lab on the UCLA campus, a group of high school students crowded around researcher Gloria Turner to inspect a bright orange fungus growing inside a glass tube. "Aw, cool!" said Omar Oliva, 16, when it was his turn to hold the tube and its odd-looking cargo, which Turner uses to study amino acid metabolism. Others passed the tube with hardly a glance at its contents.

Community colleges are central to the nation's higher education system, enrolling almost 30% of all postsecondary students. But their record of success is spotty. Nationally, only about a quarter of full-time community college students complete their studies within three years (the official measure of a school's graduation rate). At more than a third of California's community colleges, graduation rates are 20% or less. Of the full-time, degree-seeking students who entered California community colleges in 2007, more than 35,000 had not earned their degrees three years later, and most of them were no longer enrolled in any postsecondary institution.

California community colleges were struggling Tuesday to absorb an unexpected $149-million budget shortfall that will mean more class cuts, layoffs, borrowing and probable elimination of summer programs affecting thousands of students. In the latest fallout from California's ongoing fiscal crisis, the state's 112 community colleges reported that revenues from students' fees are $107 million below projections for the current fiscal year as more economically strapped students seek and receive fee waivers.

Facts are stubborn things, and though throwing a hissy-fit in response to my Op-Ed article (“ Community colleges' learning disability ”) may give commenter "sportschic1900" some emotional satisfaction, it doesn't change the facts. The reader wrote: This article is so simplistic in its scope that it's scary. First of all, the "only 30% of students earn degrees at community colleges" is an old scare tactic that people use to try to make it look like these are institutions of failure.

The Los Angeles Community College District Board of Trustees announced Wednesday that it has reached a settlement with a Pasadena firm, Gateway Science & Engineering, over alleged billing improprieties. The company will continue to supervise the $450-million building program at Los Angeles Mission College. The district had alleged that Gateway approved payments to the construction company FTR International for work it had not performed at a 90,000-square-foot fitness center on the campus The project was plagued by delays and allegations of faulty workmanship, which were detailed in a Times series last year on the community college district's $6-billion campus reconstruction program.

Community colleges are central to the nation's higher education system, enrolling almost 30% of all postsecondary students. But their record of success is spotty. Nationally, only about a quarter of full-time community college students complete their studies within three years (the official measure of a school's graduation rate). At more than a third of California's community colleges, graduation rates are 20% or less. Of the full-time, degree-seeking students who entered California community colleges in 2007, more than 35,000 had not earned their degrees three years later, and most of them were no longer enrolled in any postsecondary institution.

Orange County officials illegally diverted $73.5 million from local schools and colleges and used the money to balance their budget and cover day-to-day expenses, state officials alleged in a lawsuit filed Thursday. The lawsuit, filed in Orange County Superior Court, contends that it was unconstitutional for the county to grab the funds, which should be spent on cash-strapped local schools and state community colleges. The money fight erupted last year, when Orange County lost $48 million in vehicle license fees and redirected tax funds to the county that were supposed to go to schools.

The head of California's community college system on Wednesday asked Santa Monica College to put on hold a controversial plan to offer higher-priced courses this summer while the legality of the program is determined. Chancellor Jack Scott said he made the request in a call to college President Chui L. Tsang during which he also expressed concern about a student protest in which several people suffered minor injuries when a campus police officer discharged pepper spray at a Board of Trustees meeting Tuesday evening.

California community colleges have shed more than 300,000 students since 2009 because the students cannot get into classes, and the toll is likely to grow unless the state reverses course and pumps more money into higher education. That bleak assessment was delivered last week by California Community Colleges Chancellor Jack Scott in a State of Community Colleges address at Pasadena City College. Scott served as president of the college from 1987 to 1995, before being elected to the state Legislature.

Where are all the knowledgeable people with a passion for bringing higher education to the masses? Too few of them are running for the board of the Los Angeles Community College District. It's not that the four contested seats need more candidates. Fifteen people are seeking seats in the at-large election; six are vying for one spot alone. But if the incumbents tend toward complacency about the operation of the colleges, their challengers tend toward ignorance of it.

Foster Washington knows the odds are against him. The Los Angeles Southwest College student is a 20-year-old from a tough neighborhood in Watts where, he says, there was little encouragement or preparation for college. Recent studies suggest that students such as Washington are the least likely to stay in school, get a degree or transfer to a four-year university, hampering their future job prospects. But Washington is determined to be the first college graduate in his family of 12 siblings.

The decision by California State University to slam the doors on new applicants next year will have a devastating impact on tens of thousands of hopeful students if it comes to pass. No one would be accepted for the spring semester except a handful of transfers at a few campuses, and all newly admitted students for the following fall - usually about 90,000 in all - would be warned that their spots were not secure. University officials say the only way this won't happen is if tax increases are passed to slow the mounting cuts at the state's most affordable and accessible four-year colleges.

A Los Angeles County Superior Court judge has ruled that the Los Angeles Community College District violated the constitutional rights of an Irvine construction firm that was accused of making fraudulent claims and was barred from doing business with the system for five years. In a ruling issued late Tuesday, Judge Jane L. Johnson determined that the evidence presented against FTR International did not support the charges and that the district's Board of Trustees abused its discretion when FTR and its owner, Nizar Katbi, were barred temporarily from bidding or contracting for further work.