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Courses have been discontinued, positions have been eliminated, pay packages have been downsized and faculty are overworked at Foothill and De Anza colleges, officials said.
“The state is broke and 90 percent of our money comes from the state,” said Linda Thor, chancellor of the Foothill-De Anza Community College District. Due to the state’s financial woes, Thor said, students and district employees have been hit with many cuts.
California was scheduled to pass a state budget for the 2010-11 fiscal year on June 30. That budget, which is attempting to close a $19.1 billion gap, has yet to be approved. Until it is, State Controller John Chiang cannot issue checks to many state-subsidized institutions, including community colleges. So far, due to the budget impasse, Chiang has been unable to issue $539.5 million to community colleges throughout the state.
Since 2008, the district has suffered funding cuts to multiple programs, including those geared toward helping economically, physically and developmentally disadvantaged students, as well as in student-transfer services, instructional equipment and scheduled maintenance projects.
This year, Foothill and De Anza colleges will offer 500 fewer programs than they did in the 2008-2009 term.
In an effort to save money, the district eliminated 117 full- and part-time positions from the budget between 2009 and 2010. That includes five administrators, 11 faculty members and 101 other support staff. However, 39 of the support positions eliminated from the budget will be funded through June of next year using $7.7 million in reserve funds the district has set aside to help preserve critical positions.
This year, all five Foothill-De Anza unions agreed to shoulder more health care costs, and there have been no cost-of-living adjustments for employees on either campus for three years running.
Even after scaling back course offerings, Thor said, instructors at Foothill and De Anza colleges have had to take on larger class sizes to meet student demand.
“The faculty are being very heroic and taking in numbers of students beyond what the state is paying us for,” Thor said.
If all goes well, and Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger’s most recent budget proposal is approved, the district could end up with a positive number on its balance sheet next June. But school officials aren’t keeping their fingers crossed. Thor said not many at Foothill-De Anza think the governor’s proposal is realistic and couldn’t say when budget will finally be passed.
In the meantime, Thor said, Foothill-De Anza remains committed to student success.
This year district officials anticipate it will be able to serve 36,168 full-time students — the same number as last year. If the district does not suffer any further cuts, Thor said, Foothill-De Anza may even be able to take on 1,000 students beyond what they have budgeted for. However, anything too far above the 3,710 mark would be untenable.
“We are committed to access but also to student success,” she said, explaining that the district wants to take on as many students as possible, but not so many that the students will be unable to receive the instruction and resources they need.
Foothill De Anza budget
Foothill De Anza budget
Foothill De Anza budget
Thanks for spotlighting the dire state of this local jewel of higher education. I hope your readers are aware of the parcel tax that Foothill-De Anza has placed on the ballot this November. If passed, their Measure E will restore 6 million dollars to their depleted budget.
We can help Foothill De Anza even if the state won’t.
Gee, what a novel idea, raise taxes… unbelievable.
Be specific, Helen, Measure E won’t “restore 6 million dollars” taxpayers will.
Cut back on high administrative costs and international programs instead!
VOTE NO ON MEASURE E
“Cut back on high administrative costs and international programs instead…”
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Gee, what a novel idea, cut spending thru laying off staff.
Except that your suggestion doesn’t make a lot of sense. The district has already eliminated 117 positions. How many more do you propose, and what effect will that have on operation of the schools?
Also, the tuition for international programs is more than 8 times the tuition charged to local students, so by advocating elimination of those programs, you are exacerbating the budget deficit problem.
Trite statements about cutting from the top are just that, trite.
I still don’t understand why we don’t raise our CC fees to be at a similar level with other states.
To add to the above – the annual tuition plus fees cost at Foothill is about $1500. The annual tuition cost at a CC in Illinois is still a VERY reasonable $2700. That additional $1200 per FT student could bring in a lot of revenue, restore classes, add staff, etc.
Textbooks cost more than tuition in most instances (ie, classes that actually lead to a degree). Tuition needs to be raised. Everyone wants something for nothing. I’m tired of paying more taxes while my salary remains the same and food and everything else gets more expensive. Why should I be continually tasked to help pay for other people’s education?
If 8.5% of the population (international visa students) are paying 10% of the fees how much more per student do international students pay than regular students? The percentages are from the District in the last Voice article on this budget matter. Obviously – some of us buy the 8X or 9X figure and others see that this doesn’t make sense when you look at the percentages. International students cost more – more specialized counciling, specialized full-time overseas recruiting. Preference for on-campus student jobs (can’t get McDonalds work on a ‘student’ visa.
Stanford can afford to have International Students (but even they don’t get financial aid from the endowment) but this ‘foreign recruitment’ program for the community colleges needs to be closed down completely – if they want my vote (and taxes).
I thought the questions about why the district doesn’t raise tuition fees were good questions. So I looked at the district’s website. (There’s an idea!!) Here’s what I found:
“Why don’t you just raise tuition and fees?
State law does not allow us to do so. Our tuition is established by the state at a rate that does not come close to covering costs. ”
More FAQ’s on this page:
http://foundation.fhda.edu/stories/storyReader$12
“Obviously – some of us buy the 8X or 9X figure and others see that this doesn’t make sense when you look at the percentages. International students cost more – more specialized counciling, specialized full-time overseas recruiting.”
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What’s obvious to you, is dead wrong to me.
Validate your statistics, they conflict with the actual posted tuition fees listed in community college catalogs:
http://www.deanza.edu/registration/cashier/studentfees.html
International students pay even more in tuition than out-of-state students. And with regards to specialized counseling and recruiting efforts, until you prove otherwise, I don’t see any published numbers that indicate these costs drive the tuition rates. The colleges themselves admit that accepting foreign students is a revenue generator for them.
Foothill is so flooded with international students that locals such as myself do not want to go there. Classes are filled before we have a chance to enroll.
Is it any wonder that locals do not want a tax to fund these international students’ education?
This district is messed up.
They allow registration for classes all the way up through the last day of the open registration period for the term, collect all fees, then cancel the class the next day without warning.
So not only do they not have enough money so must make cuts, but the must spend money processing needless refunds. Does anyone see anything wrong with this?
“Flooded with International Students”? Really?
The latest figures for Foothill enrollment show a student population of 18,036, see link.
http://www.foothill.edu/news/fh-facts.php
Latest figures for International student enrollment are 1,200, see link.
http://www.foothill.edu/international/about.php
So when you say “flooded with international students”, what you really mean is that 6% of the total student body are internationals.
More like a trickle, than a flood to me.
Unless you are referring to the fact that Foothill college has a majority student population that is of non-Caucasian descent, which by no means indicates a flood of internationals.
And why would the presence of foreign students make you not want to go to Foothill? At best, your observation is simplistic, at worst, its xenophobic.
Incidentally, those 1,200 students pay the equivalent of about 50% of the entire local student population’s tuition. Now that’s more like a flood, IMO.
We in the US have gotten used to getting everything cheap. Go to Walmart, and find nearly everything made in China being lapped up. And now we depend on foreign admissions to enable cheap tuition. This country has lost it’s way.
The country will surely lose its way if it loses sight in the value of “foreigners”, or “internationals”.
At its very formation, America has been defined by the fact that every citizen has either been a foreigner or who has descendants that were foreigners. Only the Native Americans can truly claim to be native to this land.
When America loses sight of this fact, and forgets the value that has been derived from embracing multiple cultures, races, beliefs, and ideas, is when America ceases to be America.
Aside from technology, America’s strongest export is its culture. You may approve or disapprove what that culture is currently, but you also play an integral part in contributing to its growth and formation, by your beliefs and by your actions.
You missed my point. I was taking issue for Americans wanting everything for cheap, no matter what the cost. Don’t lose sight of the fact that when we no longer have an industrial or manufacturing base, a lot of what has made America strong in the past will be gone for good.
From an economics perspective, the presence of international students represents a form of service export by the US (i.e., knowledge shared with the world, in return for their dollar spending). Given our continuing edge as a premier knowledge society, why shed tears on loss of low-wage jobs to China, when we could be revitalizing a host of new service sectors right here – in medical technology, green energy, IT, design, etc. Hence we would begin mirroring the ‘off-shore’ boom in service sector jobs in India, but doing it on the high end of the value-added knowledge spectrum. Pluralism is not only a great American value, but also a highly profitable engine of growth for us all.
Foothill recently configured and erected coverings in parking lots 2 & 3. And a fault line runs directly through this area.
If the district is hurting for money as they claim, where’d they come up with the funds for this?
Hardin – Thanks for attacking me.
Assuming your numbers are correct, yes it is “flooding”. When local students cannot register for classes because seats are taken by people who don’t live here and don’t pay taxes, yes that is “flooding”. And not only that, they get priority!
Priority should be for locals, not people who don’t live here, don’t pay taxes, and likely will leave this area when completed and will take their education with them!
Hardin – Not to mention, who fills a majority of student employment? Foreign students! Who are issued social security numbers so they can have this employment? Foreign students! Who will take the education that they earned here with them when the leave? Foreign students! Who don’t pay equal taxes for this government-funded education? Foreign students!
I know several community colleges throughout California that have very few foreign students — and those campuses are doing just fine!
A few years ago, there was a woman from Sweden enrolled in my Spanish class at Foothill. When speaking with her, she said that she went to Foothill because a Vice President traveled all the way to her hometown in Sweden just to recruit students.
There is something wrong with a publicly funded school who has enough money to send its personnel abroadon expensive trips, but doesn’t have enough money to care for its students.
So Foothill and Deanza may be larger because of foreign enrollment. But what can you say about the numerous other campuses that do not have high foreign enrollments? How do these campuses manage to thrive without them? Foothill and Deanza can do it too, if the administrators get their priorities straight
“Don’t lose sight of the fact that when we no longer have an industrial or manufacturing base, a lot of what has made America strong in the past will be gone for good.”
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You must have missed the memo, America no longer is the leader for industry or manufacturing. That boat has sailed. America’s new base is in innovation, technology, biotech, and green technologies. And that’s not a bad thing. Our economy has matured into new industries and when we embrace those by developing and leading them, we will have something of value to export.
The recently unemployed that have been laid off from the automobile industry and other manufacturing sectors are discovering that their skills are outdated for the times and they need retraining. Schools like the community colleges help provide the education and training needed to support the “new” economy.
But that’s a side issue anyways, because America’s strength resides not only in being a leader in cutting edge sectors of the world economy, but by being the leader of values that are currently identified as being “American”. Free press, free expression, and an acceptance of differing peoples are a part of that. They are as much a catalyst for the innovation we have as anything else.
“Hardin – Not to mention, who fills a majority of student employment? Foreign students! Who are issued social security numbers so they can have this employment? Foreign students! Who will take the education that they earned here with them when the leave? Foreign students! Who don’t pay equal taxes for this government-funded education? Foreign students!”
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Not a day passes but families are ruthlessly turned out to make room for foreign invaders. The rates are burdened with the education of thousands of foreign children.
– William Evans Gordon, British nativist, 1905
The people of this country are too tolerant. There’s no other country in the world where they’d allow it… After all we built up this country and then we allow a lot of foreigners, the scum of Europe, the offscourings of Polish ghettos to come and run it for us.
– John Dos Passos, early 20th century novelist, on U.S. immigration policy
The enormous influx of alien foreigners will in the end prove ruinous to American workingmen, by REDUCING THE WAGES OF LABOR to a standard that will drive them from the farms and workshops altogether.
– Opinion article in the Philadelphia Sun, 1854
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See a pattern here?
Hardin, you seem to suggest that these foreign students are part of a long line of foreigners in our history who have come to this country (via targeted recruitment) for the SOLE purpose of receiving an outstanding and subsidized education at the taxpayers expense, employment and counseling. They might pay more in tuition, but they have not paid for the invested infrastructure of the colleges. I’m just trying to figure out where in our great history such a precedent exists. I’m having trouble here, help me out before you start slinging the xenophobia label.
I suggest nothing that I haven’t already stated, supported by facts.
1. Foreign Students are a slight minority in junior colleges, 6% at Foothill College, that has been singled out to be purportedly “flooded” with them.
2. Foreign Students pay at least 8 times in basic tuition, as compared to local students.
3. Having foreign students in this country follows a long tradition of attracting and retaining brain power and entrepreneurial resources from other countries. The examples of the fruits of that labor are too numerous to count.
With regards to your assertions about the motivations and agenda of foreign students, please enlighten us with your proof of a conspiracy.
If you require a precedent to clear up this issue, here’s one of many:
The people of this country are too tolerant. There’s no other country in the world where they’d allow it… After all we built up this country and then we allow a lot of foreigners, the scum of Europe, the offscourings of Polish ghettos to come and run it for us.
– John Dos Passos, early 20th century novelist, on U.S. immigration policy
If you require more to be convinced, or are looking for an exact example of today’s issue somewhere in history, then I contend the problem here isn’t foreign students.
When a house has less than an inch of water covering the floor, it is said to be “flooded”, is it not?
What is the foreign enrollment of studens in community colleges throughout California? Is it anywhere near Foothill & Deanza? Why not?
Thinking that having foreign students attend your community college ” retaining brain power and entrepreneurial resources from other countries” is naive. These students do not remain here after completing their education. Foreign students are on an EDUCATION VISA; they MUST return to their home countries when completed.
Proof of a conspiracy, you ask? No one ever suggested they are conspiring. But along your line of thinking, prove they aren’t…
Your quote is not a precedent.
Foreign students are entitled to have a translator at taxpayer expense. But when you walk into the admissions office and can’t understand the foreign student at the window because s/he speaks very broken English, ask for one and see what happens.
You must be a foreign student or labor who decided to stay.
Hardin:
You still dodge your claim of a precedent.
Again, where is the precedent for “(via targeted recruitment) for the SOLE purpose of receiving an outstanding and subsidized education at the taxpayers expense, employment and counseling. They might pay more in tuition, but they have not paid for the invested infrastructure of the colleges.
I’m a first generation son of legal immigrants who never reaped such a benefit.
“When a house has less than an inch of water covering the floor, it is said to be “flooded”, is it not?”
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Soooo, you’re inferring by your logic that the ideal makeup of a student body should be 0% of international students…..
There are a lot of level headed people, including local, state , and federal governmental bodies that would disagree with you on that.
But let’s assume for the moment that your logic makes sense. Using the same logic, if I paint my house white and 6% of it is black trim, then I no longer would have a white house, but rather a house that’s “flooded” with black.
See how having a “black and white” perspective on Life doesn’t fit most of the time?
“Thinking that having foreign students attend your community college ” retaining brain power and entrepreneurial resources from other countries” is naive. These students do not remain here after completing their education. Foreign students are on an EDUCATION VISA; they MUST return to their home countries when completed.”
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What’s naive is assuming that foreign students are a homogeneous population that all have the same desire and goal to come to the United States for a good education and the intent on leaving thereafter…
What attracts international students to this country is the combination of 1st class education, abundance of high paying jobs in cutting edge industries, and the wealth, security, and level of freedom available here. There are many who stay here, either on work visas or who become citizens in order to continue to enjoy these privileges.
Again, Life is not as black and white or as “simple” as you seem to think it is.
“You must be a foreign student or labor who decided to stay.”
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LOL, I almost missed this one. Actually I am a second generation American citizen, born and raised in the Bay Area. I love baseball, eat apple pie, and think there’s nothing better than a 67 Camaro SS.
However, as you are intent on putting a “Black” or “White” label on everything, then in your case, you can put me in the illegal alien category.
“I’m a first generation son of legal immigrants who never reaped such a benefit.”
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Shame on you then, for lacking the understanding what a 6% minority in a student population has to go thru when people begin the point fingers and blame the State of California’s education budget problems on them. Really, are foreign students the primary driving force why the community colleges are in shambles? Please provide the proof, so that we can all be convinced of that.
“You still dodge your claim of a precedent.
Again, where is the precedent for “(via targeted recruitment) for the SOLE purpose of receiving an outstanding and subsidized education at the taxpayers expense, employment and counseling.”
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I confess to not having a perfect example for you, just a number of historical examples that show how easy and common it has been to place the blame on the FNG, when they are the most vulnerable and least able to defend themselves, and how history has proven time and again that that position has been morally and intellectually backward.
However, there are excellent American History classes being offered by the local community colleges that I’m sure will be able to confirm or discredit, your assumptions.
You better be quick tho, I’ve heard these courses are being “flooded” by foreign students so you may already be out of luck getting a seat…
And again… these foreign students being recruited are hardly the
“the most vulnerable and least able to defend themselves”
However there are plenty along California Ave, but I guess the kind of travel that would involve on the part of college administrators doesn’t quite match the perks that come with the international jet-set type.
“It takes $13,500 per year to educate each community college student.”
http://www.yesforfoothilldeanza.com/faqs.html
A foreign student pays ~$5,000 per year for tuition.
http://www.deanza.edu/registration/cashier/fees.html
The tax payers have been subsidizing the difference, $8,500 per yer per foreign student. ($13,500 – $5,000)
There are over 3,000 foreign students at Foothill and De Anza.
http://www.international.fhda.edu/
The tax payers have been paying over $25M for the education of foreign students at Foothill and De Anza. ($8,500 x 3,000)
This measure is not necessary if FHDA charges the foreign students the actual cost of their education.