Student Fees Rising at American River College

The Great Recession ended in June 2009. But mid-year spending cuts to the 2011–12 California budget will raise per unit student fees at the state’s community colleges, including near Carmichael, from $36 to $46 in summer 2012.

On the ARC campus and around California’s system of 112 community colleges that educate 2.6 million students annually, such fees have climbed from $26 to $46 per unit over the past two years since the end of the recession.

“Most of our colleges prepared for the possibility of mid-year budget cuts and planned spring 2012 course sections accordingly,” Jack Scott, chancellor of the California Community Colleges said in a released statement. “Where students are really going to feel the impact of the continuous reductions in state funding is in the area of student support services."

In a message to faculty and staff throughout the Los Rios Community College District, Chancellor Brice Harris advised them that the district adjusted its spending levels since last June 1. As a result, mid-year state trigger (automatic) cuts “will not have a further negative impact on us between now and June 30,” he said.

California lawmakers’ 2011–12 budget pact contained trigger cuts in the event of a shortfall of state tax revenue from July 1 to Dec. 15. In other words, if the six-month amount of state tax revenues was less than lawmakers’ projections in their '11-'12 budget, there would be mid-year spending cuts to K-12, community colleges, university systems and various social services.

And so it is. According to the most recent monthly report of State Controller John Chiang, California’s budget is $1 billion behind in revenues and $2 billion ahead in expenditures.

The state Legislature returns to session to grapple with how to deal with the yawning budget deficit in January.

In the meantime, ARC and community college students statewide are facing an escalation of costs to higher education. Scott of Los Rios said that without adequate support and guidance, it will be much more difficult for many community college students to graduate, transfer, earn a degree or get job training in a timely manner.

The Public Policy Institute of California recently released a report on the Great Recession and its impact on the widening divergence of income
distribution statewide. Sarah Bohn and Eric Schiff, the report’s authors,
write: “The most important factor driving the gap between high- and low-income workers is education. Looking ahead, California may need to find innovative ways to promote opportunity through education, especially so that middle- and lower-income families are not left behind.”

Gov. Jerry Brown backs a ballot initiative known as The Schools and Local Public Safety Protection Act of 2012 for this November that raises $7 billion by increasing income taxes on individuals earning more than $250,000 annually and temporarily imposing a half-cent increase in the sales tax statewide.

The California Funding Restoration Act for the November 2012 state ballot would raise $6 billion per year for public schools, kindergarten through higher education and basic services taxing the income of millionaires.