SACRAMENTO — For the second time in as many years, thousands of sign-waving, slogan-chanting students and instructors from at least 80 community colleges statewide converged on the Capitol last week on Monday to protest proposed budget cuts.
The rally targeted Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger’s plan to raise tuition from $18 per unit to $26 dollars per unit. Student and faculty speakers also focused their anger on perceived preferential treatment for four-year institutions and the failure of the state to honor Prop. 98, a 1988 ballot measure designed to provide minimum levels of funding for K-12 schools and the community college system.
Many speakers reacted angrily to the fee increases and Schwarzenegger’s plan to send CSU and UC students to community colleges as part of a 10 percent enrollment cut for those institutions.
“If every single student voted, we can rock the vote and get what we want!” screamed Kristin Franklin, a member of the California community college board of governors.
Joseph Macedo, student body president at San Jose Community College, bellowed out to thunderous cheers, “All we want is a fair share. We have been sold out and we won’t take it no more!”
Others complained about a misdirection of funds under Prop. 98, which they said guaranteed community colleges exactly 10.93 percent of whatever money the state allocates for public schools below the four-year university level.
In a post-rally meeting with state Sen. Dean Florez, D-Shafter, in his Capitol office, a group of instructors representing the faculty association at Bakersfield College contended that community colleges have never received their specified Prop. 98 share. They told Florez, whose senatorial district includes Bakersfield College, that the cumulative yearly difference – which ending up going into K-12 coffers – amounted to a loss of $4 billion.
“This year alone would mean $423 million, and for us in the community colleges, that’s a huge part of our entire budget, and yet it’s a drop in the bucket for K-12,” said psychology instructor Steve Eso.
They told Florez that the powerful California Teachers Association, which represents the vast majority of K-12 teachers and therefore dwarfs the Faculty Association of California Community Colleges (FACCC), concocted a deal with Schwarzenegger to cheat the community colleges out of the money owed to them.
“The baby that was least able to fight back got his candy stolen,” said Dean of Students Beto Gonzalez at one point.
Florez was out of the room at the time the comment was made.
When he returned, speech instructor Helen Acosta contended that students with nowhere else to go other than a community college were the ones paying the price.
“We have to serve everyone in California – that’s out job – and we can’t if we have to turn them away (due to underfunding),” said Acosta.
Florez assured them that community colleges were high on his agenda.
“We know that community colleges are – at least I do – very vital and important,” he said.
In an interview with The Rip, he suggested that the Prop. 98 controversy could be avoided if UC’s and CSU’s absorbed more of the cuts.
“I think that if we adjust it in a way that would look more at the CSU and UC and figure out what is fair in terms of cutting them, we might be able to, in essence, keep Prop. 98 whole,” he said.
Eso expressed his hope that the march would help give community colleges the clout they need to get the legislature to act on their behalf.
That hope was shared by Sarah Molina, a business administration major who showed up in the pre-dawn darkness to join a handful of other BC students for the long bus ride to Sacramento.
“To me, they’re not messing with just my education, they’re messing with my life, with my future,” she said. “And so, I figure, that’s good enough for me to get up at 3:30 in the morning.”