California is facing a huge budget cut in the area of education.
Community Colleges are being affected just as much as other institutions. Tuition increase is without a doubt foreseeable in our future.
Currently we are paying $11 a unit here at Skyline College, but with talks of an increase in tuition, which is quite likely to occur, our unit price will increase by more than 100 percent to $24 a unit. And not only are they trying to increase our tuition, but they are also cutting programs and classes left and right.
We at The Skyline View do not see this as an acceptable proposal to solving the budget problem. Cutting classes and increasing unit prices will only hinder our college experience, and offer us less education for a higher price.
With what little that we as a community college have to offer now, cutting classes and programs will decrease the desire to attend Skyline. Here are a few suggestions we would like to propose the budget makers that be:
1. Increase the unit price gradually over a time span so that students who need financial help can ease into the huge increase and that there is no shock to the pocketbook.
2. If the unit price is increased right away to $24 a unit, then do not cut the programs and classes that we need, we are willing to dip into our pockets so these programs and classes won’t be cut.
3. Look over the budget we now have and see if the increase will help us or hurt us. Higher prices may not compensate for the loss of students, as a result of the price hike.
Now, The Skyline View understands that in other states, community colleges charge anywhere from $40-$60 a unit. That is quite a huge breach from what we would be paying at $24 a unit.
With those high prices in those other states, we as Californians have it made right now at only $11 a unit. That said, one would only assume that such an increase would be rather affordable for California community college students.
However in other states, cost of living is not nearly as high as it is in California, and their population at these colleges are low, making competition between other Community Colleges minimal. Also, those colleges offer an array of classes at those prices making it more desirable to attend.
The proposal to increase unit prices needs to be thoroughly reviewed to ensure that it will either solve our problems financially or help us get to where we need to be in the long run. As long as the programs and classes resume at Skyline as well as other community colleges, it would not hurt us to pay the extra $12 a unit.
What will affect us, however, are these programs and classes that may be cut because then we would be offered less for our buck, which is of course not fair.
There needs to be a happy medium, and with the way things are going, we are not sure that will happen.