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Texas Budget Has State’s Community College Leaders Worried

Posted byHoumanitarian

RELATED: Community College Funding Shrinks, For-Profit Enrollment Grows: US Treasury Report
(Huffington Post)

Associated Press
AUSTIN, Texas  — Texas community colleges have been experiencing a historic growth spurt but might be forced to increase class sizes and lay off employees without additional state funding, some school leaders said.

Hundreds of thousands of students have flooded into community colleges since the middle of the last decade, attracted by low tuition and diverse course offerings, from welding to computer science and engineering.

Although overall enrollment at community colleges is lower than the previous semester, administrators say state assistance has failed to keep pace with years of steady growth. The 2011 budget did not include cuts for community colleges, but spending remained flat and did not cover a 20 percent increase in enrollment during the previous two years, the Fort Worth Star-Telegram reported.

Current draft budget recommendations would reduce community college funding by 5 to 6 percent over the next two years, according to officials at the Texas Association of Community Colleges.

“What we’ve been facing is jokingly what I would call the Rodney Dangerfield syndrome: We can’t get any respect,” said Bill Holda, the association’s board chairman and Kilgore College president.

Holda said the state’s 50 community colleges, with more than 725,000 students, constitute more than half the total enrollment in higher education but “have not had the prestige” of better-funded four-year universities, many with big budgets and nationally recognized research and athletic programs.

However, many state lawmakers are among the community colleges’ legions of defenders. They say the schools play a vital role in educating returning veterans and molding the state’s workforce.
Read the full story at Chron.com

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