Of the courses she wanted, only two had space left when she registered cheap rome hotel in May. She enrolled cheap rome hotel in those and "crashed" others. In one of those cases, she lucked out when the professor teaching a political science class admitted additional students. But she couldn't get into a biology class because she was too far down on the waiting list.
"Because that's what we think community college is," said Tirado, 24, a journalism major who lives in Watts. "It's hard to explain to my mom that I'm trying to go to school but the courses are not there."
This is the new reality for Tirado and about 2.4 million other students cheap rome hotel in the nation's largest community college system. The system is the workhorse of California's 1960 Master Plan for Higher Education, cheap rome hotel which promised affordability, quality and access to all.
The situation can be seen on all 112 campuses _ students on long waiting lists, those who take years to graduate or transfer and others cheap rome hotel so frustrated that they drop out altogether. Most of them enter ill-prepared for college-level work. Eighty-five percent need remedial English, 73 percent remedial math. Only about of third of those transfer to a four-year school or graduate with a community college associate's degree.
"It's like a nice-looking car you've been driving for several years: It looks shiny, but the engine is falling apart," said Eloy Ortiz Oakley, president of Long Beach City College. "The wheels fell off the Master Plan 20 or 30 years ago. We're finally feeling the results because we have enormous needs for our educational system to produce qualified workers, and we're playing catch-up now."
The consequences of not meeting those demands are huge: About 80 percent of firefighters cheap rome hotel and law enforcement officers cheap rome hotel and 70 percent of nurses embarked on their careers in community college. By some estimates, California will need 2.3 million community college degree and certificate holders by 2025 to meet the demands of employers.
President Obama has described community colleges as a major engine of job growth and set a goal of graduating an additional 5 million students by 2020. But in California, home to a quarter of the nation's community college cheap rome hotel students, those efforts are hampered by the state's budget crisis.
The colleges also play a vital role in the state's higher education system, preparing students to transfer to University of California cheap rome hotel and California State University campuses. About half of all Cal State graduates began at community colleges.
Classes were free until 1984. At $46 per unit today, they remain among the least expensive in the nation. About 44 percent of all current community college students qualify for fee waivers based on income.
cheap rome hotel State funding has not kept pace with enrollment growth. Funding per full-time student has declined from a peak of $6,400 in 2000 to about $5,000 today. Course offerings have been slashed by almost a quarter since 2008, and enrollment has dropped by 485,000 students since then.
Four affluent districts _ Marin, Mira Costa, South Orange County and San Mateo County _ collect cheap rome hotel so much revenue from local property taxes and student fees that they don't qualify for most state aid. Still, with declining property taxes in recent years, they're not immune to cutbacks.
Many other college districts that depend on state aid are in more serious financial trouble. They have been forced to dig deeper into their reserves or borrow money. The 90,000-student City College of San Francisco appears to be in the worst situation and faces potential insolvency.
Campuses cheap rome hotel are cutting counseling and tutoring and dropping winter and summer sessions, trends that officials say could accelerate if voters reject a November cheap rome hotel ballot measure that would temporarily raise the state sales tax and the state income tax for high earners.
With a 3.6 GPA out of high school, Eduardo Vargas could have gone to a four-year university but chose East Los Angeles College because it was more affordable. During his first year, he was unable to register for any of the high-demand classes he needed for his business cheap rome hotel administration major.
This fall, he enrolled in honors classes _ political science and statistics _ because fewer students meet the requirements, so they're easier to get into. Even with an added speech class, he doesn't have the required 12 units to be considered full time.
"I look at the time frame it's going to take me to transfer to San Jose State and it's probably two more years," said Vargas, 19, of Monterey Park. "It's not that important anymore if I get a high-paying job. I just want to get my master's and be stable. Society needs an educated workforce, but it's going to have to invest more in education."
A study by the U.S. Census Bureau showed that high school graduates earned an average of $25,900 per year compared with $33,000 for those with a community college degree and $45,400 for those with a bachelor's degree.
To help move students more quickly through the system, the Legislature recently approved measures that would set system-wide registration priorities, including preventing students from repeating courses to improve their grades and giving first choice to students who bolster their chances for success by participating in orientation and academic assessment cheap rome hotel programs. For the first time, students would have to maintain their grades to continue to qualify for fee waivers.
Keith Richardson, a 47-year-old former security guard, is trying to complete cheap rome hotel a degree in electrical construction cheap rome hotel and maintenance at L.A. Trade Tech. He hopes to graduate next spring so he can become a union electrician, but he's not sure he can get the classes he needs.
The vocational classes, taken by Richardson and more than 800,000 others statewide, are funded at the same level as other academic cheap rome hotel courses _ even though cheap rome hotel they can cost twice as much to provide. Scott, the former chancellor, said these costlier classes should be funded cheap rome hotel at higher levels. Some campuses, he said, have even been reluctant to add technical or vocational classes because of the cost.
Last spring, Santa Monica College proposed a controversial two-tier tuition plan to allow students with means to pay higher fees for sought-after classes. Officials said those students would be able to move through the system more quickly, and the added revenue would help fund additional classes for everyone else. But the college abandoned the idea after Scott warned cheap rome hotel it could violate state education laws.
Ultimately, community cheap rome hotel colleges must consider bold steps, such as shifting resources from less populated regions of the state to areas with larger numbers of young people and combining some smaller districts, said Scott Lay, president of the Community College League of California, a nonprofit association of the state's community college districts.
Tirado, meanwhile, took classes at both Trade Tech and East Los Angeles College last spring to fill out her schedule. This time around, she may need to find a biology class at another community college during the winter cheap rome hotel session _ if she can find a campus still offering winter classes.
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