Roundup Editorial Board
Pierce College is among the best community colleges in the country, but there is one thing many of its students refuse to learn.
In order to learn from certified experts in a school with modern equipment alongside approximately 22,000 other students, you have to pay for it, or at least that would make sense to sensible people.
This is where our student body starts to develop two popular, albeit ironic causes: Most are expressly opposed to any fee increases on the horizon, but they don’t care for the lack of classes stemming from budget cuts either.
As inferred earlier, the money to support education has to come from somewhere, so the cost should naturally fall upon the consumer.
This is not entirely true, yet.
According to the Los Angeles Community College District’s (LACCD) finalized budget for 2010-11, Pierce accounts for more than $68 million of the district’s $452 million unrestricted general fund; within the district, Pierce is second only to East Los Angeles College.
The author of the aforementioned and publicly available budget was also kind and calculator savvy enough to confirm that, given our budget and enrollment figures, Pierce’s expenditure per full time equivalent student is $3, 746.
Non-international full time students, smart money says you haven’t given the college over $3000 this year.
As a matter of fact, the “other local” section of our school’s budget, which compiles student fees with other miscellaneous income from the community, only accounts for $17 million. (If every student pays equally, that would be less than $800 per student)
How much does the school receive from the federal government? $26 million. That’s almost as much as the University of Florida receives. ($37 million, in case you were wondering)
What kind of entitlement does it take to fight for fee stabilization when we aren’t even matching the already tight-belted Congress’ contribution, or even displacing the cost we represent to the school?
At this junction, you might be saying, “Well, it’s not my fault that my school spends more money on me than I give them.”
Well, it is in part the student population’s fault.
The LACCD budget is released prior to its relevant school year, so it is based primarily on appropriations, which are estimations based upon the previous year’s statistics.
Last year, the budget anticipated $24 million from Pierce’s local sector but only received a little over 80 percent of that. On top of that, the state of California shorted our school about $8 million.
These are all reasons that an eventual fee increase is inevitable; remember this marathon of statistics the next time someone’s petitioning on the Mall to prevent a fee increase or a friend complains about the myriad of budget cuts.
Instead of carrying our own weight and actually earning our education like the meritocratic society we feign to be, community college students are acting like spoiled brats.
You get what you pay for.