College students across California are helping pay for the state’s multibillion-dollar budget deficit.

California State University, the University of California and the California community college systems will be forced to trim costs if Gov. Jerry Brown imposes widespread cutbacks to all three tiers of the public higher education system for the coming school year.

The CSU system alone is slated to receive a $500 million reduction to its budget, said Liz Chapin, an administrative assistant of the CSU public affairs team. That amount could rise to as much as $550 million once mandatory costs, such as the increased cost of living and health benefits for employees, are factored into the budget, she said.

Although the CSU system braced for the financial hit by raising $225 million in increased tuition earlier this school year, individual campuses were told to make further cuts for the 2011-12 year, Chapin said.

‘The previous year we had raised tuition, and we recently raised it in November to prepare for the difficulties. We’ve done that to provide more of a safety net, as far as funding goes,’ she said.

The available budget was divided among the CSU campuses, with less funding allocated to larger, more revenue-generating campuses such as California State University Northridge, San Diego State University and California State University Long Beach, Chapin said. There are 23 CSU campuses, according to the CSU website.

Thousands of eligible applicants were denied admission to CSU Long Beach in response to the university’s $34 million reduction in funding, said David Dowell, vice provost for enrollment and director of strategic planning.

‘The greatest tragedy of all is that, because of the cutbacks, there have been thousands of students not able to go to college,’ he said.

In an attempt to spare students and protect classes, CSU Long Beach is cutting from areas like transportation first because it will have the least effect on students, Dowell said. Should a larger proposed billion-dollar cut to the CSU system pass, CSU Long Beach could withhold up to 2,800 class sections from students, he said.

Dowell said he sympathizes with students protesting the cutbacks.

‘The budget cuts are eroding the quality of education,’ he said.

With droves of students being turned away from the UC and CSU systems, community colleges are looked upon as a more financially beneficial alternative, said Juan Gutierrez, director of public relations at Pasadena City College, one of California’s community colleges.

Gutierrez said the effects of the $10 million decrease in funding to Pasadena City College will be felt. The $10 million decrease is part of the $800 million budget cut California’s community college system could face.

Since community colleges do not deny admission to students who fulfill the necessary requirements, higher enrollment rates have made registering for classes increasingly competitive, Gutierrez said. Essentially, students are paying higher fees for fewer classes, he said.

The per-unit cost of classes will be $36 for the 2011-12 year, up $10 from the current year, Gutierrez said. That rise comes after Pasadena City College offered early retirement packages to eligible faculty to stave off layoffs and other means of fiscal conservation.

Jennifer Thai, a communications major at Pasadena City College, said the aftermath of cutbacks made in previous years has caused visible dissatisfaction among a student body eager to transfer to larger institutions.

‘Students are frustrated when they cannot get classes they need. Several classes have also been cut, which lengthens the amount of time it takes students to transfer out or graduate,’ she said in an email.

Kristin Little, a freshman molecular environmental biology major at UC Berkeley, said the cuts to the UC system have resulted in lengthier waiting lists and campus protests. The system is facing cuts of $500 million, according to the UC website.

Because lower-division prerequisites are offered with less frequency, they close out quicker, causing students to delay their enrollment in required classes for a semester, Little said.

Little said she feels increasingly shortchanged by California’s higher public education system.

‘There seems to be no end in sight to the cuts in education, and the future of society depends on the education of the next generation,’ she said in an email. ‘Thinking about how education is free in some countries, this seems absolutely ridiculous.’

dbtruong@syr.edu

Published on April 5, 2011 at 12:00 pm

Contact Debbie: dbtruong@syr.edu | @debbietruong