Jerry Brown signs bill creating two tiered tuition, one without any state support

[yurbud]

As the Republicans are desperately trying to commit political suicide in Washington, Democrats in California are trying desperately to keep destructive conservatives ideas alive.

SACRAMENTO, Calif. (AP) - Gov. Jerry Brown has signed a bill that would allow California's community colleges to offer additional courses at inflated prices during short summer and winter sessions.

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The measure sponsored by Assem. Das Williams, D-Santa Barbara, would allow community colleges to make courses available between the traditional fall and spring semesters.

It does not provide additional state funding to pay for the extra classes. Instead, students would be charged the nonresident rate of $200 per unit, compared with $46 for state-subsidized credits during traditional semesters.

Several community college systems and student and faculty groups opposed the bill, saying it would put lower income students at a disadvantage.

http://www.news10.net/news/article/260136/2/Brown-signs-bill-for-pricier-community-college-classes

[melody]

1. Jerry is a fantastic governor

He has resurrected our state -- just like he did the last time.

[napi21]

2. Why? Why the inflated price?

I usually agree with what Jerry Brown does, but I don't understand why he's doing this. Can you enlighten me please?

[yurbud]

5. they tried to do this at Santa Monica College where I teach. They wanted private contractors to

administer the higher priced classes, which makes no sense since the school is perfectly capable of collecting money.

In this state level bill, they dropped the contractor part.

It's a great deal for legislators: they can say they are providing access to college without raising taxes on their rich donors and big businesses.

[CreekDog]

7. these aren't regular semesters

they are the short periods between the regular academic year.

it is probably to help the institutions help their budgets during the regular year, without depriving anybody.

i'm not against this because it's pretty much impossible to take more than one class during these short sessions and the regular faculty often aren't teaching then.

[yurbud]

15. the same people teach the bulk of all required classes--adjuncts who have to stitch together

multiple jobs to survive, like me.

So for the instructors, this is actually a short term plus--potentially more work to go around.

But most of us understand what a struggle it is financially for most middle and working class to get through college, which outweighs the slight personal gain for us.

[NYC_SKP]

3. I'm not sure this is a bad thing.

Regular semester courses stay the same?
These are offered during inter session?

[yurbud]

4. there are already classes in the intersession at the regular price, so this just jacks it up

[CreekDog]

8. the community colleges are perennially strapped

this money from intercession would probably help the regular session and regular students more than it would harm them.

[yurbud]

10. no. The big picture is it's a foot in the door to transfer the cost of college entirely to students

and their families rather than raising taxes on the wealthy.

[CreekDog]

13. actually, the universities already do that during intersession

but they have never been allowed to do it during regular session.

[JI7]

6. many kids take classes during short sessions and this would hurt lower income

students while those who are well off would have no problem.

[dchill]

9. Jerry Brown is crazy ... like a fox.

(A crazy fox.)

[yurbud]

11. please elaborate

[pnwmom]

12. If these classes aren't required for graduation, what's the problem? nt

[yurbud]

14. they are required for graduation. They want this for high demand classes first

that's the whole rationale--the tax base isn't big enough to offer more classes, so we make the students pay for the additional ones.

[pnwmom]

16. But they're still going to be offering these high demand classes

in the spring and fall -- at the lower rate.

So the idea is that if some students want to pay a premium to take these classes in between the regular terms, then it will help to alleviate crowding in the regular, low-cost classes in the fall and spring.

Are you sure that's not worth experimenting with, as the governor put it?