State leaders expect California's community colleges to enroll slightly fewer students this year, despite a record number of high-school graduates and staggering unemployment.
The 110-college system — "soon to swell to 112 schools" — will lose an estimated 21,000 students in 2009-10, state Chancellor Jack Scott told reporters Wednesday. The system enrolled 2.89 million last year.Budget cuts have left many unable to get the classes they need, he said.
The surprising enrollment decline "is a result of a lack of resources," Scott said. "We're on the road to a disastrous decline in college enrollment in California."
With nearly 3 million students, California's community college system is, by far, the largest higher-education network in the country. Enrollment had swelled by about 5 percent per year for much of the past decade.
But an 8 percent budget cut last year has taken its toll, Scott said. The system is educating about 200,000 students for whom the state is not paying, he said, a circumstance that has forced colleges to trim unaffordable course offerings.
Students at Diablo Valley College in Pleasant Hill say demand for classes far outweighs supply.
"Some of my classes, people have to sit on the floor," said Alex Pristinsky, who's in his fourth year at the college.
"Every class has to have a waiting list and even the waiting lists are full," said Kelsey Wise, a first-year psychology major. She
said she was unable to get into an introductory psychology course this semester because both the class and wait list were already full.With fewer seats available, the open-access colleges have t
