Local College Students Protest Fee Hikes, Fewer Classes

Decrying the increase in fees and the cuts to classes, Mt. SAC students Wednesday gathered in protest in the quad outside of the library.

Around 50 students rallied, holding up signs lamenting the state budget crisis.  The group later marched across campus.

The protest follows Gov. Jerry Brown’s release Monday of his May budget revise, which cuts $8.3 billion in an effort to bridge a nearly $16 billion shortfall.

Brown did not call for additional cuts to community colleges in his revise this time around, but his plan does call for slashing education spending if his proposed tax initiative does not get voter approval in November.

Mathew Foresta, 22, one of the organizers of the protest, urged his fellow students to stand up for their college and push their state legislators to put a stop further education cuts.

Foresta, the Associated Students’ Interclub Council Senate chair, said that in the past two years, fees have gone from $26 a unit to $46.

“I’ve seen fees increased. I’ve seen classes cut. I’ve seen community colleges take bigger and bigger hits,” he said.  “We shouldn’t be just talking about it. We shouldn’t just be whining about it on Facebook. We should be standing up.”

Foresta said he plans to transfer to UCLA in the fall. He would never have made it there if it hadn’t been for Mt. SAC because he didn’t do well academically in high school, he said.

“This place helped make it happen,” he said. “I wouldn’t have lived a very good life if I didn’t have this opportunity.”

Ahmad Azzawi, the Associated Students’ president elect, lamented how the budget cuts at the state level have forced the college to slash the number of course sections offered. 

“I’ve been engaged in plenty of class hunts,” said the 20-year-old. “I’ve been rejected admission to too many classes because the classes were full and there was no seat for me.”

History Professor Ralph Spaulding, who has been teaching at Mt. SAC for 42 years, said enrolling in classes in his department is tough.  When the 84 or so sections of a basic history class open, they are all full in less than a week typically, he said. The waiting list is full three of four days after that, he added. 

He encouraged students at the rally to get active, vote, lobby legislators, and keep their neighbors informed about the issues they face trying to get through college. Around 90 percent of the state lawmakers went to community colleges, CSUs, UCs, or all three, including Sen. Bob Huff (R-Diamond Bar), so why are they stripping funding, he said.

“You can change this,” he said. “I’m a kid of the 60s.  In the Civil Rights Era, in the Vietnam era, we took to the streets. And we believed by taking to the streets, we could stimulate and initiate change and we did it.”

In a letter to faculty and staff Mt. SAC President Bill Scroggins wrote that the college faced $8 million in cuts going into this year, plus another $2 million or so in mid-year “trigger cuts.” In addition to that, the campus lost a one-time portion of the trigger cut and state revenues from a shortfall in property taxes and student fees, reducing reserves by another $4 million, he said.

The college must now prepare for the uncertainty of the governor’s tax initiative. If it doesn’t pass, the summer session in 2013 could be cut, Scroggins said. Mt. SAC would likely face another budget reduction of $6.6 million to be implemented by cutting the funded full-time students by 1,600, he said.

Sofia Haq, an Associate Students’ student services senator, said students need to become more informed about what is going on with the budget at the state level. The less informed they are, the more likely they are to blame the administration and Board of Trustees when it is really about cuts being made in Sacramento, said Haq, 20, who plans to transfer to UCLA or UC Berkeley in the fall.

“As students, we have to get more involved,” she said. “We’re not kids anymore. We’re adults now so have to take a stand for what we believe in."