News

Budget Cuts Trigger More Tuition Fee Hikes
Governor Schwarzenegger wants community colleges to pay more

By Lucas Muncal
Guardsman Staff Writer

Students seeking assistance for this semester lined up outside the Financial Aid office in Cloud Hall. Photo by Jorge Parada

City College students can expect higher tuition and more competition for fewer classes. Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger's preliminary budget plan for 2004-05 proposed raising fees statewide for community college courses from the current $18 per unit to $26 per unit- a 30 percent increase.

Education leaders across the state are questioning the effect the budget will have on students seeking access to higher education.

"There are minimally 100,000 students that were forced out of the community college system (statewide) when the tuition increase went from $11 to $18," said Chancellor Philip Day.

The proposed budget seeks to make students pay more. The result will be thousands of students applying to CSU's and UC's being redirected to community colleges across the state.

"It's going to affect me a great deal," said Dean T. Morris, a City College student. "I pay for everything myself and I'm going to this school because I can't afford to go to another school. People that can afford to go to other schools should."

A recent study on community colleges suggested both increasing state funding as well as increasing fees. Patrick Murphy, the re-port's author and the director of the University of San Francisco's McCarthy Center for Public Service, said that fees should be raised as long as "the money raised remains in the system, and isn't used to offset the deficit."

Students who already have a bachelor's degree will see their fees increase to $50 per unit under Schwarzenegger's budget.

Higher fees could be paid for by increased financial aid suggests H.D. Palmer, spokesman for the California Department of Finance. According to Palmer, increasing the credit unit by $8 would push students into the bracket to qualify them for the maximum Pell Grant.

Under he new budget, students taking 30 units per year would pay $780 in tuition, but would qualify for the maximum Pell Grant of $4,050. Under the current fee scale students taking 30 units per year pay $540 in tuition and can be awarded up to $3,938 in Pell Grants.

That simply does not add up said Chancellor Day. "To spend $240 more on tuition so that they can get $120 more of financial aid, now I'm sorry, that's another disconnect for me," he explained.

When former Gov. Gray Davis proposed raising fees from $11 per unit to $24 per unit last year, community college students along with faculty and staff turned out en masse in Sacramento to protest. Lawmakers reduced the fee increase to $18, fearing that higher fees would close the door on low-income students.

"Schwarzenegger's out of the gate budget from a student's perspective is an open invitation to march in March in protest of the impact that this (budget) is going to have on them," answered Chancellor Day.

A mid year budget cut rocked City College in 2002. The school was able to avoid faculty and staff layoffs by freezing expenses, postponing wage increases and trimming classes. Despite reduced course offering, enrollment has grown at City College, largely due to teachers voluntarily taking on more students on a class-by-class basis.

Chancellor Day remains optimistic regarding future funding. "If we can patchwork a budget throughout this year and get over the hump," he said, "I think that the next year the budget is going to be much better."

Residents Sue City College
Chinatown Campus improvements leads to displaced residents

By Rob Cruz
Guest Writer

City College's plans to build a new 140,000-square foot campus in Chinatown hit a major snag because of a lawsuit filed against the school by tenants of the Fong building scheduled to be demolished to make way for the construction. The tenants are suing not to prevent new construction, but to ensure that the school provides adequate replacement housing.

Cheung Yau Poon stands in front the Fong Building at 53 Columbus Street where 50 tenants will be relocated to accomodate construction of the new Chinatown Campus. Photo by Tony Castellano

The Fong Building, built in 1952 and located at 53 Columbus Street, houses about 50 residents, many of whom have lived there for generations.

The proposed site for housing the displaced residents of the building is the Chinatown YMCA, which will be reconstructed and re-named the Chinatown YMCA Apartments. The project is being developed by Asian, Inc., a nonprofit organization, and funded by the Chinatown YMCA and the Metropolitan YMCA.

According to a memorandum between Asian, Inc. and City College, displaced residents will receive "first preference to households" if City College contributes funds to the development of the Chinatown YMCA Apartments.

Funding has yet to be secured by City College, leaving tenants in a holding pattern about their future living arrangements, according to Gen Fujioka, the residents attorney.

"If (City College) had planned properly, they would have started five years ago" to develop new housing, Fujioka said. He added that because of the lateness in finding a site for replacement apartments, tenants at Columbus Street would be forced to live in interim housing until construction completed.

The lawsuit was filed at San Francisco Superior Court in December by the Fong Building Residents Association, who Fujioka said also feel that City College has not been open to hearing the opinions of those they seek to displace.

"City College has kept tenants in the dark, excluding them from the planning process," Fujioka said.

Fujioka also said that City College officials examined the possibility that housing might be created within the new campus itself, a plan that has since been scrapped.

"It's quite apparent that City College never intended to live up to that commitment," Fujioka said.

Vice Chancellor of Finance and Administration for the college, Peter Goldstein, has a different take on matters. Goldstein feels that City College is doing its part to accommodate a successful transition for the residents, who he said were interviewed about their housing needs and personal finances. He also said that a resolution to create a tenant committee was successfully passed at a recent meeting.

"Tenants will not be paying more than their ability to pay," Goldstein said, adding that the college will contribute $1.7 million for replacement housing.

Though rents will increase, Goldstein says they will be adjusted to each individual renter's needs, with the college picking up the difference between the tenants' old rent and new rent for forty-two months. Residents sixty-two years or older will have the disparity in rents paid "for life".

The new campus, scheduled to open in early 2007, would consolidate the current Chinatown campus, which mainly offers non-credit English as a Second Language courses, into one campus which will provide enough credit courses to get students halfway to an A.A.

Though no trial date has been set, the two sides are scheduled to meet in Superior Court for a case management conference on May 14 to evaluate their progress.

Flex Day Proves to be Positive
Chancellor Day addresses faculty and staff about pressing issues while remaining energetic, optimistic and hopeful

By Eli Milchman
Guardsman Staff Writer

Chancellor Day addresses the faculty and staff about the budget crisis and campus issues during his State of the College speech on Flex Day. Photo by Monica Davey

In the face of the severe financial woes that City College now faces, Chancellor Day delivered an upbeat biannual Flex Day speech peppered with humor to a packed Diego Rivera Theatre earlier this month.

In what could be considered a "State of the College" address for City College, the popular Chancellor talked about a wide variety of subjects, including the administration's efforts to soften the blow to the college as a result of California's budget crisis. He also described campus-wide remodeling plans, extensive expansion in plans for the future (detailed in a document dubbed "The Master Plan") and preparations for an accreditation review in 2006.

The Chancellor affirmed that students would not bear the brunt of the financial burden. "For one thing, the proposed increase of 44 percent in the tuition rate is dead on arrival," Day stated, saying that the increase would be no more than 10 percent.

Despite the looming budget chasm the state has to deal with this year, the overall atmosphere was of positive attitude and energy. The feeling that staff and faculty took away from the meeting was of hope.

"I think it means that we can continue in the next year to serve our full complement of students and maybe more," said Day. "I am anticipating that it means we can look forward to better budgets in 2005 and 2006."

Associate Dean of Students, Skip Fotch said, "It's nice to have a positive shot in the arm right when you get back."