Just like an earthquake that hits California and takes us by surprise, the administration at Skyline College shocked students by not announcing the fee increases for the Fall 2003 semester.
Last semester students, teachers and staff, hoping to ease the pressure on raising tuition fees, wrote, marched, and petitioned our state representatives in Sacramento -don’t overburden the California Community College system with unfair increases in fees. The Skyline administration, fearing a budget crisis, also held high-level staff meetings to brief its professors and staff of probable cuts.
However, when the Fall 2003 schedule came out, there it was; unit fees were $11.00 per unit.
It seemed that we had avoided the crisis and fees would not go up this semester. Further, Websmart (Skyline’s computerized registration system) calculated fees due at the $11.00 per unit for students when registering for classes. It looked like we had dodged the proverbial bullet this semester.
However, the Fall 2003 schedule’s fees were wrong and the web has yet to be updated to reflect higher fees. Many of us found out for the first time that the unit fees had been raised to $18 per unit at the cashier counter in building 2.
We at The Skyline View feel that it is important for the San Mateo County Community College District to inform all students of any fee increase or changes that may affect students.
Due to the lack of funds that the district has there are other ways of getting the information out to students such as:
1. Making a link or putting a notice on the front page of Skyline’s web site and Web SMART about the fee increase.
2. Make an announcement on SMART telephone.
3. Send out postcards.
We understand that the district is low on funding due to the budget cuts and that the budget was not signed until the beginning of August leaving little to no time to inform students through mail. However we feel that finding alternative ways to inform students would be better than to not tell them at all.
The college administration should be more empathetic to this situation and its students. In the future, Skyline and other community colleges should take measures to prevent this kind of information lapse.
If the district had made more of an effort to inform students, then students wouldn’t have seen the increases as much of a shock and rather more of an expected change.