A budget was proposed by Governor Brown to fund colleges depending on how committed students are to their classes.
It is proposed that California Community Colleges (CCC) could begin having a second census at the end of the semester seeing how many students have remained in their classes.
The colleges would receive funding based on this information. This would go on for 5 years before the funding will rely more on the second census. This is to help keep students in classes and to not take the same classes over again.
Some of the legislators seem to be in favor of this proposal as evidenced by bills such as AB 2542 in 2009-10, which would have modeled 5 schools to be funded this way.
They believe it may help increasestudents’ success and the amount of money that is spent by colleges.
The worry that some have is that fees will increase to make up for the smaller amount of funding that colleges will receive if many students continue to drop their classes..
The current program that is being used by the colleges focuses on getting more students rather than their success. This is because colleges receive funding depending on how many students are enrolled rather how many students stay in those classes. With the second census in place, it will promote student success.
If this proposal passes, CCC’s would receive funding based on course completion by 2017-18. This would allow schools time to strategize how to keep students from dropping, possibly by increasing
tuition rates (California’s community college tuition costs shared by students are some of the lowest in the country).
There is no question of CCCs’ accessibility, however efficacy is another matter. Less dropped classes mean less retakes, which can only stand to help students and schools.
It remains to be seen how colleges would impress these values onto students.
Jessica Holemin, a student of Skyline College, feels like the real reason students are dropping their classes is because of the costs.
“I think that students have been dropping because they can’t afford to pay for the units because they are so expensive now,” said Holemin.
The proposed changes could have the positive effect of guiding students into better habits of college learning, which could better ready students for UC and CSU learning.
Course completion is actually quite high at CCC’s–around 85 percent. However, program completion such as transfer degrees and Associate’s degrees hovers at around one-third
of students with these goals.
