http://www.latimes.com/video/?clipId=3459050&clipFormat=flv&topVideoCatNo=81318
California's community colleges near
the breaking point
By holding down enrollment, the shift would help balance budgets at UC and CSU campuses. But officials say the move seems likely to worsen problems at the state's 110 two-year campuses, many of which already face budget shortfalls that have them chopping courses, laying off part-time faculty and cramming classrooms so full that students have to perch on windowsills.
In particular, many educators fear that an influx of new students will further reduce the ability of many community colleges to prepare students for transfer to four-year schools. The more savvy newcomers may shove aside some of the existing 2.5 million community college students, who are struggling to work toward a university degree from the bargain-priced, but strained, two-year system, officials say.
The concerns are the more pressing because two-thirds of the state's college students, and most of the African Americans and Latinos, are at the two-year campuses.
If students cannot get the classes they need to be eligible for transfer to a four-year college, they could become discouraged and drop out, educators worry. The San Diego Community College District, for instance, had almost 8,000 students on waiting lists for one or more classes before the current semester even began, said Lynn Neault, vice chancellor of student services.
The classroom glut, Neault said, is unprecedented.
Ophelia Walker, who recently returned to school to work on her registered nursing degree at Los Angeles Harbor College in Wilmington, was surprised to find that every science course she needed was closed to new students.
"I'm not too old, but time is very valuable to me right now," Walker, 33, a Carson resident and licensed vocational nurse, said last week. "I don't need to waste it."
The reasons for community colleges' relatively low transfer rates are hotly debated. Two-year campuses serve many masters: returning adults, vocational education students, English learners, slackers trying to put off working and residents looking for a yoga class -- or a girlfriend. Not everybody plans to move on to a four-year college.
Community college officials say that 40% of students who are serious about transferring manage to do it. But the Public Policy Institute of California, in a 2006 study, found that only about 25% of the students who are focused on transferring actually make it.
For many students, trying to assemble transfer credits is like entering a looking-glass world where little is as it seems. Comp 101 might be a prerequisite for transferring to Cal Poly Pomona but not to Cal State Long Beach, a requirement for English majors but not rhetoric students, good enough for the Cal State system but not for UC, or vice versa.
In addition, the requirements for a student to earn an associate of arts degree and to be eligible to transfer to a four-year school are not necessarily interchangeable. And financial aid is yet another bewildering, highly bureaucratic, thicket.
"Students are enrolled in the wrong courses in order to transfer, they're taking courses without sufficient guidance and they don't know the process or calendar by which you get things accomplished," said Marc Cutright, director of the Center for Higher Education at the University of North Texas, who is also on the staff of a new institute there dedicated to the study of transfer students.
"It's a bureaucratic perfect storm," agreed Estela Mara Bensimon, director of USC's Center for Urban Education, who has studied community college transfers.
Many schools that do better at easing the university pathway have transfer centers and counseling staffs to help students navigate the maze of requirements. But counselors are in short supply at many community colleges, experts have found.
The faculty senate for the California Community Colleges recommends a ratio of 370 students for each counselor. The actual ratios run as high as 1,700 to 1, said USC education professor Alicia Dowd, who participated in the transfer study with Bensimon.
It's no coincidence that Santa Monica College, which has the highest UC transfer rates of any community college, also has one of the biggest counseling staffs, with 60 full-time and 40 part-time advisors, said Dan Nannini, coordinator of the college's transfer center.
"We put a lot of resources into counseling," Nannini said. "It's absolutely integral to students' understanding the process, and getting the right information so they're eligible for transfer, and also for confidence purposes."
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커뮤니티 칼리지 포화상태 '편입 준비생' 애꿎은 피해
4년제 대학 학비 부담에 대거 몰려 |
LA 타임스는 3일 '파열점에 다다른 커뮤니티 칼리지'라는 제하의 기사에서 장기적인 경기 침체에 따라 학비 부담을 느낀 정규 대학 학생들과 직장을 잃고 다른 직업을 준비중인 청년 실업자들이 커뮤니티 칼리지로 대거 몰리고 있다고 보도했다.
타임스에 따르면 가주 내 110개 커뮤니티 칼리지들의 대부분은 주 정부의 예산 적자에 따라 강의.전공분야 축소 교직원 구조조정 등을 이미 단행한 상태다.
그 러나 강의.교직원 수는 줄어들었지만 학생 초만원 사태가 빚어지면서 강의실에서는 의자가 모자라 창문 선반에 걸터앉아 강의를 듣는 이들이 생겨나고 특정 과목들에 수강 대기자들이 넘쳐나 250만명에 달하는 기존 학생들이 과목 선택에 어려움을 겪고 있다.
신문은 최근 가주 입법분석청이 올해 커뮤니티 칼리지의 학생 증가율이 최소 4% 이상이 될 것이라고 전망했지만 이미 10% 이상의 증가율을 보인 학교들도 상당수라고 강조했다.
이처럼 폭발적인 학생 증가 추세와 예산 부족 사태가 맞물리자 교육 전문가들은 커뮤니티 칼리지 교육의 질적 저하를 우려하고 있다.
또 4년제 대학 편입을 위한 필수 수강과목 등록에 어려움을 겪는 학생들이 늘어나 결국 커뮤니티 칼리지의 편입률이 더욱 낮아질 것으로 예상되고 있다. 이 뿐 아니라 대부분의 커뮤니티 칼리지에서 학생들의 편입을 도와줄 카운슬러들의 수가 절대적으로 모자라 편입문은 더욱 좁아질 전망이다.
샌디에이고 커뮤니티 칼리지의 린 네얼트 학생 서비스 부총장은 "이번 학기가 시작되기도 전에 최소한 한 과목 이상 등록 대기자 명단에 이름을 올린 학생 수가 무려 8000여명"이라면서 "4년제 편입 준비생들이 필수 과목 강의를 듣지 못해 위축되고 심지어 기회를 포기하진 않을까 걱정"이라고 말했다.
한편 가주 커뮤니티 칼리지 관계자들은 4년제 대학 편입을 목적으로 입학하는 학생들의 40% 정도가 편입에 성공하고 있다고 밝혔지만 최근 가주공공정책연구소(PPIC) 조사에 따르면 실제 편입하는 학생은 25%에 불과한 것으로 나타났다.
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