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STEVE LOPEZ / POINTS WEST

The Well's Running Dry for Colleges

Steve Lopez

March 21, 2004

The sign in front of Los Angeles City College boasts that the school is "an urban oasis of learning." But on campus, there seems to be trouble in paradise.

A student named Brett VanBenschoten took me to Franklin Hall to see for myself. A white sheet with black print hung at the end of the hall, announcing that Math 114, 117, 124 and 125 were dropped, along with Speech 101.

We ducked into the office of English teacher Gary Colombo, president of the academic senate. He said budget problems forced the school to lop off courses that were prerequisites for higher level classes, throwing countless students off-track.

It was even worse last spring, said Leanna Watts, dean of student support services. "We dropped 350 classes."

VanBenschoten and Watts have had enough, so last week they rode a bus to Sacramento to make a stink in Capitol Park. Joined by thousands from the state's 109 community colleges, they protested Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger's proposal to raise fees to $26 per unit, a 44% increase that follows a 64% increase last year by Gov. Gray Davis.

It doesn't sound like much, Watts said, but it's enough to drive hundreds of students away or force them to take fewer classes and extend their stay several years.

"We have so many people here who are hanging on by their fingernails," she said.

But the fee increase is only part of the gripe.

"We're being forced to pay more for less," said VanBenschoten, 31, a third-year student who wants to teach linguistic anthropology at a community college one day, provided they're still around.

In the last three years, Watts said, 31 full-time LACC faculty members have retired. Only two full-timers were hired to replace them. The athletic field is now a parking lot, and the women's track team practices at USC.

When 350 classes were cut last year, enrollment dropped 8% and class sizes ballooned. There's a shortage of computers, lab equipment and other supplies, Watts said, and she now is alone in running a department that once had two additional full-time staffers.

California's community college system, a once-proud national model, is being turned into a mediocrity. If I sound like I'm taking it personally, it might be because I got my start at Diablo Valley College. A counselor at the Bay Area JC encouraged me — for better or worse — to take up journalism.

I got my A.A. degree at DVC and transferred to San Jose State. But in the new world, transfers are being capped, which may force more students onto community college campuses even as they're being dismantled.

It is not clear to me how the governor can promise "fantastic jobs" for everyone while tearing up the road to self-improvement, particularly when there's a screaming need for a better-educated labor pool. But there's good news along with the bad.

No tax increases.

Schwarzenegger promised to spare us, and he's keeping his word, even if it means an erosion of services and hiking fees on those who can least afford to pay. Technically speaking, fees are not taxes.

Sitting in the quad with VanBenschoten, I looked up at the state and U.S. flags flying high, and could not remember a state or national election in the last 20 years that wasn't about taxes. The subject so dominates political discourse, "No New Taxes" ought to be printed on the flags and added to the national anthem.

Oh say can you read my lips?

We are lucky enough to eat cake in the richest, most consumptive nation in history, and yet we can't stop talking about taxes, taxes, taxes.

You'd think we were the most put-upon, overburdened souls in the history of man. But in a ranking of the top 30 industrialized nations, the United States ranks 27th in local, state and federal taxation as a percentage of gross domestic product. Only Japan, South Korea and Mexico are lower.

In the United States, California ranks 10th in taxes per capita, but the state is so wealthy, we're 19th in local and state taxation as a percentage of income.

Last year, cutbacks and fee increases drove 175,000 students out of community colleges. But we'd rather do education on the cheap, stick it to police and firefighters, and scale back health care than consider a minimal tax increase to help balance the budget.

The Schwarzenegger misers argue with some merit that community college students have a pretty good deal. Even with the fee increases, California still charges less than any other state. But Watts says California's expenditure per student is only two-thirds the national average, and doesn't even match what's called for by state law.

Team Schwarzenegger also argues that more than one-third of community college students get their fees waived. It's actually higher at LACC, where 60% of the student body is covered, and VanBenschoten is one of the lucky ones. He earns so little at his campus job that his course fees are waived, although books and other costs still run him close to $1,000 a semester.

When I was in community college, I only had to pay for books. To be honest, it was the bargain of my life. But the state's investment in me, and its bold commitment to a grand ideal, paid off for the state, too.

Or, as VanBenschoten puts it: "If I could either save $50 a year in taxes, or invest in making sure students can get better jobs and become taxpaying citizens, I'm going to invest in the future."

Linguistic anthropology is a good choice. The boy's got no future in politics.


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Steve Lopez writes Sunday, Wednesday and Friday. Reach him at Steve.lopez@latimes.com and read previous columns at latimes.com/lopez.