2008 Woodie Awards
Legislation set to change tuition fees
Nick Stockton
Issue date: 9/13/06 Section: News
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The California Community Colleges Initiative is a three part piece of legislation that seeks to drastically change the way that community colleges are funded, lower overall student tuition fees, and alter the way students are represented on the Board of Governors.
The portion of the initiative dealing with tuition rates proposes resetting the tuition back down to 15$ per unit across the board, for all state community colleges. Instead of setting a cap to future tuition raises, the initiative compromises with a formula that raises tuition at a rate proportional to the average state income increase/decrease.
According to Alan Crane, BC's Legislative Liaison and recently elected student representative to the CCLC Advisory Committee on Legislation, this means that the populace of California would have to receive an average 3% raise in income in order for the tuition rate for community colleges to be raised 3%. Likewise a raise of 5% would result in a tuition raise of 5%.
However, there is no drop in tuition if the average income for the state drops. Also, there is language in the bill limiting the yearly tuition increase to 10%.?Currently, community colleges in California are funded based on a Full-Time Equivalency Standard (FTES) shared with Kindergarten through 12th grade, essentially making it a K-14 system.
In the most basic sense, (FTES) the total number of credits being taken by students at a community college divided by twelve, since if a student is to take twelve units, they are considered to be a full-time student. 1 FTES = 12 units.
The flaw in this, according to the initiative, is that enrollment at community colleges and public schools fluctuates at different rates.
For example, if the K-12 enrollment was down 3%, and Community College enrollment was up 4%, a 1% increase in funding would be spread across the board, rather than specific to each group's enrollment.
Crane believes this is important in order to "equalize the budget process for the public school systems."
The portion of the initiative dealing with tuition rates proposes resetting the tuition back down to 15$ per unit across the board, for all state community colleges. Instead of setting a cap to future tuition raises, the initiative compromises with a formula that raises tuition at a rate proportional to the average state income increase/decrease.
According to Alan Crane, BC's Legislative Liaison and recently elected student representative to the CCLC Advisory Committee on Legislation, this means that the populace of California would have to receive an average 3% raise in income in order for the tuition rate for community colleges to be raised 3%. Likewise a raise of 5% would result in a tuition raise of 5%.
However, there is no drop in tuition if the average income for the state drops. Also, there is language in the bill limiting the yearly tuition increase to 10%.?Currently, community colleges in California are funded based on a Full-Time Equivalency Standard (FTES) shared with Kindergarten through 12th grade, essentially making it a K-14 system.
In the most basic sense, (FTES) the total number of credits being taken by students at a community college divided by twelve, since if a student is to take twelve units, they are considered to be a full-time student. 1 FTES = 12 units.
The flaw in this, according to the initiative, is that enrollment at community colleges and public schools fluctuates at different rates.
For example, if the K-12 enrollment was down 3%, and Community College enrollment was up 4%, a 1% increase in funding would be spread across the board, rather than specific to each group's enrollment.
Crane believes this is important in order to "equalize the budget process for the public school systems."
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