Catch-22 curriculum
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Re “UC cuts freshman enrollment for fall,” Jan. 15
How great that the UC system is cutting enrollment and sending more students to us at the community colleges.
Except that with the archaic state budgeting system and the financial impasse in the Legislature, we don’t seem to get increased money for more students. So our solution is cutting classes rather than serving more eligible students.
Instead of the 200 or so classes scheduled for the January inter-session, our administration canceled the entire session to save money, leaving our two campuses looking like ghost towns. And we have already cut classes through next fall.
Multiply this by the 100-plus community colleges, and where will these freshmen go if the celebrity governor and the Legislature keep bickering over taxes and budget cuts?
The bottom line in this Catch-22 morass is that it will take more years for our students to work their way through school, and it will be harder for them to find classes to prepare for jobs that probably will be outsourced overseas anyway.
Terry Bales
Los Alamitos
The writer is a professor at Santa Ana and Santiago Canyon colleges.
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