As most of us already may know, state funding cuts have resulted in a budget deficit for community colleges. The deficit plaguing the Foothill-De Anza Community College District is of approximately $22.8 million.

I can imagine why colleges would want to cut classes to save funding, but it really is not in the best interests of the students to further limit the number of classes. That is something more administrative. As I student, I am considering the fact that we pay a great deal of money; we should be provided with classes even if the classes do not exactly comply with a degree.

In an effort to reduce costs, De Anza College already cut some vital language classes which contribute to the learning environment, such as Urdu. This class was perfectly transferrable and was a five- unit course. What if somebody’s major requires them to take the Urdu series to be admitted as a prerequisite into their major? Or what about the widely popular language series Arabic, that was in danger of being cut? The point is, De Anza must stop cutting classes regardless of how much money it saves the school. The main purpose of community college is to provide students with a wide array of classes that can help them choose their area of interest, whether that may be majoring in a language or in a science. 

The Student Success Task Force recently considered limiting non-credit classes to only those identified as Career Development or College Preparation. In short, this would mean further cutting of classes that do not quite fit into the General Education requirements for UCs or CSUs. 

If something like this were to ever befall us, our college education would take a huge step back in terms of progression. The basis of my opinion lies on the fact that community college is a place where we the students discover the path which we want to take. Students need to take different classes to discover themselves and know what they want. Students change their major many times. I have come across many who have changed their majors a complete 180 degree angle from what they started off with.

“Having the ability to take a variety of classes at De Anza aided me in realizing that I would like to study a different major,” stated environmental studies major Nidhi Solanki. “I definitely appreciate the broad range of my previous classes and feel that they were necessary for my educational pursuits.”

 Like Nidhi Solanki, there are many other students at De Anza who take up classes that may not be considered to be general education requirements. Cutting off these classes would totally alter the educational system for the worse. One may argue that it is a waste of time taking these useless classes and it just prolongs a student’s tenure at a two year community college, which has some degree or truth to it; taking classes for the sake of finding one’s career path may extend a student’s time at De Anza. However, this is hardly a bad thing. It’s better to spend a little extra time finding what truly interests a student rather than rushing in and out of college just to save time. So from a broader perspective it isn’t, so long as we get to discover who we are and work on what we are passionate about. I think that’s what we do at a college; we find ourselves in terms of what we want to do with our lives.

The idea of cutting classes may seem the most logical thing to do at the moment for the school, but for students the defeat just seems to reach a different level. As the economy plummets, the feasibility of even studying at a community college narrows. The future students of California will have fewer options in education. The future seems a little too dark.