Sienna Jackson / Roundup
As the Great Recession trundles on, higher education is more important than ever.
In keeping with national trends, many Californians are flocking back to community colleges to update their skills and remain competitive in an ever-tightening job market.
This overwhelming demand for education is putting pressure on community colleges to serve as many students as possible.
If you’ve ever taken a class at Pierce or any other community college in the last two years, then you’re familiar with this scenario:
You walk into a classroom, day one, and maybe twenty—no—fifty other students are waiting nervously in the classroom for your professor to show up.
There’s not a single free desk in the room, so some students are leaning against the walls or sitting in spare chairs in the back.
When the professor finally arrives and asks, “How many of you are on the roster,” only half of the class raises their hands. The others are all hoping to add, or are on a waiting list.
This is what an offset of the roughly 2.2 percent enrollment growth in the California Community College system looks like.
That translates to over 200,000 students enrolled in community colleges who don’t have classes because of a 20 percent reduction in community college course offerings, according to statistical data from the California Department of Education.
Solutions to this rising and unmet demand for higher education range from increasing tuition, putting the burden on taxpayers, or simply continuing education cuts regardless.
A simplistic solution would be to increase class sizes, allowing a larger number of students to attend a course at any one time in an effort to save money—this has become a trend throughout the California school system since the beginning of 2010.
But raising the cap on class sizes to alleviate demand isn’t the best option; it would increase the strain on the colleges to support larger classes, even if it might save some cash in the state’s overall budget.
As classes continue to be cut, funding for secondary education continues to dwindle, and the state struggles with a nearly $20 billion deficit, classes at Pierce College will have to stay small and lean, or they’ll buckle under the strain.
