HTTP/1.1 200 OK
Date: Mon, 13 Feb 2012 05:27:03 GMT
Server: Apache/2.0.63 (Unix) PHP/5.2.8
Last-Modified: Sun, 20 Jul 1997 05:43:21 GMT
ETag: "3e3102-269d-b3299040"
Accept-Ranges: bytes
Content-Length: 9885
Connection: close
Content-Type: text/html

<HTML>

<HEAD>
<TITLE>News -- From Welfare to Work
</TITLE>
</HEAD>

<BODY BGCOLOR="#FFFFFF" LINK=#006666 VLINK=#006666>

<center>

<img src="../images/CTBANN1.GIF" width="468" height="72" align="middle" alt="IMAGES OFF: Crosstalk -- News">

<img src="ctdate_0297.gif" alt="IMAGES OFF: Vol. 4, No. 3 -- February 1997">

</center>

<p>

<blockquote>

<center>
<B>
<FONT SIZE="+3">From Welfare to Work</FONT><BR>
<I><FONT SIZE="+1">Anticipated reforms enhance the role of community colleges</FONT></I>
</B>
</center>


<p><B>By William Trombley</B><br>

This could be the year that California's vast community 
college system-106 colleges, 1.4 million students, 
a $4.2 billion operating budget-finally gets some attention 
in the State Capital.
<p>
Neither Governor Pete Wilson nor the Legislature has 
paid much notice to higher education in recent years. 
When they have, it usually has been to quarrel over 
budgets for the University of California and California 
State University systems, with scant attention paid 
to the two-year public colleges.
<p>
But this year might be different. If the announced federal 
and state welfare changes actually come to pass, and 
if jobs are to be found for masses of people now on 
welfare, the community colleges will play a major role 
in providing both general education and specific job 
training.
<p>
&quot;I want to concentrate on the community colleges,&quot; 
Ted Lempert (D-Palo Alto), new chairman of the Assembly 
Higher Education Committee, said in an interview. &quot;They 
have not received the attention they need and they 
will be vital to our efforts in welfare reform, job 
training and community development.&quot;
<p>
A member of the Legislative Analyst's staff agreed. 
&quot;Welfare will be the prime issue in Sacramento 
this year, and the community colleges will be an important 
part of the debate,&quot; the staffer said.
<p>
The colleges currently enroll at least 125,000 students 
who receive payments from the Aid to Families with 
Dependent Children (AFDC) welfare program (which has 
been given the cheery new acronym TANF-Temporary Assistance 
for Needy Families). Eighty percent of them are women.
<p>
The governor's proposed 1997-98 budget includes $53.2 
million, in Proposition 98 money, to expand and repackage 
existing educational and job training programs for 
welfare recipients, and to come up with new approaches 
as well.
<p>
The money will be spent to expand the work-study program, 
which places students who are on welfare in jobs while 
they are still in school; to increase child care and 
other support services for welfare students; and to 
pay for community college coordination efforts with 
county welfare offices, among other purposes.
<p>
Connie Anderson, who is coordinating the activities 
for Community College Chancellor Tom Nussbaum, said 
the goals are to help currently-enrolled welfare recipients 
complete their educations and also to develop new, 
&quot;intensive, short-term&quot; job training programs 
for new students.
<p>
Anderson noted that all this must be done by a chancellor's 
staff that has been greatly depleted by budget cuts 
in recent years. &quot;I'm optimistic that we'll be 
ready to go by next fall,&quot; she said, &quot;but 
I'm not sure that's realistic.&quot;
<p>
Some community college officials are concerned that 
the $53 million budget augmentation might not be nearly 
enough for the enormous task of moving students from 
welfare to work.
<p>
Others believe the money should come from the state 
General Fund, not from Proposition 98 funds, which 
are supposed to be earmarked for educational purposes 
in public schools and community colleges.
<p>
&quot;Many of my (Assembly) colleagues are opposed to 
that,&quot; Lempert said. &quot;That will be a hot 
topic of legislative conversation.&quot; 
<p>
The chief fiscal officer for one of the state's largest 
community colleges asked, &quot;If Prop. 98 money is 
going to be used for welfare recipients, what's next-the 
families of welfare recipients?&quot;
<p>
But Connie Anderson replied, &quot;We already spend 
Prop. 98 money on GAIN (Greater Avenues for Independence) 
and other welfare programs that help students. I don't 
see the difference.&quot;
<p>
The governor's budget proposes a total spending increase 
of about $238 million for community colleges next year, 
including $71 million to accommodate expected enrollment 
growth of 34,250 students. Since Proposition 98 revenue 
is expected to exceed budget estimates, the two-year 
colleges probably will receive additional growth money 
later in the year.
<p>
Wilson's &quot;compact&quot; with the University of 
California and the California State University will 
continue for another year. The governor has proposed 
a 6.1 percent increase in General Fund support for 
UC, about a four percent increase for Cal State. 
<p>
And for the third year in a row, Wilson has frozen tuitions 
at their present level-$3,799 at UC, $1,584 at Cal 
State, $13 per credit unit at the community colleges.
<p>
UC enrollment is expected to rise by 1,500 students 
to a total of 153,000 on nine campuses next year. Cal 
State's full-time equivalent enrollment is expected 
to increase by about 3,000 to 258,000.
<p>
The Wilson budget proposes a five percent salary increase 
for UC faculty members (with merit increases, the average 
will be close to 6.5 percent), but only a 3.4 per cent 
boost for Cal State professors.
<p>
UC &quot;chose to put a heavy emphasis on faculty salaries, 
but our needs are spread out among many other priorities,&quot; 
said Richard West, Cal State senior vice chancellor 
for business and finance. These priorities include 
improved technology, maintenance of buildings and equipment, 
and the extra costs associated with the new campus 
at Monterey Bay and another planned for Ventura County.
<p>
&quot;We're very disappointed and very upset,&quot; 
said Jerry Bledsoe, executive director of the California 
Faculty Association, which represents about half of 
Cal State's instructors. &quot;We felt the trustees 
made a commitment under the compact&quot; that the 
pool of money available for faculty salary increases 
would equal the total increase in state spending for 
Cal State. &quot;That commitment was kept for the first 
two years but this year it has been broken and we feel 
betrayed,&quot; Bledsoe said. 
<p>
The Wilson budget also proposes another hefty boost 
in Calgrant awards to first-time freshmen who choose 
to attend private colleges or universities. This year 
those grants jumped from $5,250 to $7,164, and next 
year they will increase to $9,105 if the governor's 
proposal is approved by the Legislature.
<p>
Jonathan Brown, executive director of the Association 
of Independent Colleges and Universities, said more 
generous state scholarships were partly responsible 
for a two-percent increase in freshman enrollment at 
private institutions this year, and he predicted the 
trend would continue.
<p>
The budget includes no money for the &quot;virtual university,&quot; 
the &quot;on-line&quot; approach to higher education 
that Governor Wilson has proposed as an alternative 
to the &quot;Western Governors University.&quot; 
<p>
&quot;We're still struggling with a design strategy,&quot; 
explained Joe Rodota, a Wilson aide.
<p>
The budget also makes vague mention of &quot;a new breed 
of charter schools,&quot; to be developed by UC and 
Cal State, in conjunction with local school districts.
<p>
However, in a series of telephone calls to the governor's 
Office of Child Development and Education, to the UC 
and Cal State systemwide offices and to campuses in 
each system, it was not possible to elicit any details 
about this venture.
<p>
UC officials thought they had pushed a proposed tenth 
campus near Merced to the back burner, but they have 
been thinking again since Cruz Bustamante (D-Fresno), 
the new Assembly Speaker, announced that building the 
Central Valley campus was his highest legislative priority.
<p>
Bustamante has appointed a &quot;select committee&quot; 
on the tenth campus, headed by Dennis Cardoza, a newly-elected 
Democratic assemblyman from Merced.
<p>
Many people in higher education breathed a sigh of relief 
when Jack Scott of Pasadena, another newly-elected 
Democrat, was named to chair the important education 
subcommittee of the Assembly Budget Committee. Scott, 
former president of Pasadena City College, replaces 
Chico Republican Bernie Richter, who, many believed, 
was using the subcommittee as a sounding board for 
his strong anti-affirmative action views. 
<p>
Brooks Firestone (R-Los Olivos), who chaired the Assembly 
Higher Education Committee in the last legislative 
session, becomes the vice chair under Lempert. Both 
Firestone and Lempert attended Princeton University.
<p>
On the Senate side, there will not be a higher education 
subcommittee because, it is said, Education Committee 
Chair Leroy Greene (D-Sacramento), does not want one. 
However, John Vasconcellos, a longtime Democratic assemblyman 
from the San Jose area who was elected to the State 
Senate last November, is expected to keep a close watch 
on higher education legislation.<P>



<p align="right"><img src="../images/CTEND.GIF" align="middle" width="18" height="18">
</blockquote>

<p>&nbsp;<p>

<center>

<b><font size="-1">
[ <a href="ctn_0297.html">NEWS</a> | <a href="cted_0297.html">EDITORIALS</a> | 
<a href="ctqa_0297.html">Q&amp;A</a> | <a href="ctov_0297.html">OTHER VOICES</a> | 

<a href="ctn3_0297.html">PREVIOUS</a> | <a href="ctn5_0297.html">NEXT</a> ]

<hr width="400">

[ <a href="../index.html">HOME</a> | <a href="../reports.html">REPORTS</a> | 
<a href="../crosstalk.html">CROSSTALK</a>  | 
<a href="../resources/resources.html">RESOURCES</a> | <a href="../order.html">ORDER</A> ] 
</font>
</b>

<p>
</center>
</body>
</html>
