An $840 million blow has been dealt to California’s Community Colleges and a deficit is left as the result of the state’s budget cuts over the last two years.

“A staggering 250,000 students statewide have been turned away from at least one class,” said Rita Mize, director of the Community College League of California. Despite efforts to deal with the overwhelming influx of students, most colleges are still over their limits. De Anza alone has had to cut 100 sections this quarter. According to Researcher Daniel Peck of the Foothill-De Anza College district, “However, the number of waitlist slots filled have increased almost threefold since last year’s fall quarter, with 2,315 overall waitlist slots multiplying to become 6,864 this year.” Peck notes this could be due in part to factors other than financial shortages.

“Foothill’s pattern of increasing section cuts and waitlist slots mimics De Anza’s, with 217 sections cut last year and 360 cut this year, while as of last Friday, 1,549 class spots were still being waited on,” said Peck.

Mission College’s Director of Public Relations Peter Anning, is no longer concerned with waitlists though, as they are deleted after the third week of classes. However he faces the fact that Mission must cut an additional 60 sections to the 40 already cut by the end of the 2009-2010 school year. He calls the situation a “balancing act” and advises students to “get your foot in the door, even if it’s a class you don’t want.” Mize predicts that next year will be just as bad, and warns of the possibility of further cuts of funding in January. Furthermore, the rejection of Proposition 1A will mean that tax revenue will be reduced even further in 2011. The proposition would have extended the duration of taxes raised through 2011 for the funding of education.

The Community College League of California is approaching the issue with representatives all over California who, together with CCLC members, volunteer to write open editorials for local newspapers to raise awareness of the problem in order to “inform local communities about the successes of community colleges and the threats of further budget cuts, develop a technical and organizational infrastructure to support advocacy efforts and inject the issues affecting the community colleges into the gubernatorial campaign,” said President/CEO of the CCLC Scott Lay.

Foothill College’s Kurt Huweg of External Relations speculated that these increased numbers reflect the economy. “Schools are turning away students, [or students are] choosing not to go to higher learning because of cost”, Huweg said. Anning also describes the situation as unusual, observing that in his 10 years at Mission, he has never had this problem and laments the insufficient funding for the increased numbers. “Community colleges are the backbone of employment,” Anning comments, “and I think California will suffer from this.”