Balancing the budget on students' backs

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Balancing the budget on students' backs
Classes cut in middle of term at CCSF

By Michelle Schudel
March 25, 2012


City College of San Francisco recently experienced an unexpected $149 million shortfall in the middle of its school year. The Board of Trustees' reaction to the shortfall was to cut nearly 100 classes, many of which had been in session for weeks.

Students whose classes were cut now cannot use those credits to graduate, and are forced to sell back their books for less than half of what they paid for them, without any increases in their financial aid, while tuition and fees are being increased. Even with fewer classes to teach, the Board of Trustees still increased the number of instructor furlough days—up to a total of 15.

CCSF is the least expensive publicly funded college in San Francisco that provides both vocational training/certificate education and transfer education for the poorest students in the Bay Area. The state of California's attack on CCSF's funding sends the message to the most vulnerable students that the state does not want them to go to college and has no interest in seeing them with more than low-wage, low-skilled jobs. ...................(more)

THe complete piece is at: http://www.pslweb.org/liberationnews/news/balancing-the-budget-on.html