California’s community colleges have lost 175,000 students, officials estimate, because of a 60 percent fee hike last year. Now, with a new governor committed to rejecting tax hikes to address continued deficits, many worry that the numbers of the missing will continue to climb.

The missing students symbolically led a line of thousands of students and educators protesting March 15 in California’s capital. They were reprising a successful "March in March" one year ago that came in response to the first increase in community college fees, from $11 to $18. This year, the marchers were mobilized by another 44 percent increase, to $26. Although the Legislature must approve the budget, marchers--students, educators and community college alumni and supporters--targeted their fury against Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger, who often has attributed his success as a bodybuilder, movie star and politician to his study at Santa Monica College.

At the same time that the fees are going up, the demand for community college is expected to swell exponentially because of a California master plan change that will shift thousands of the state’s top-ranking students from the University of California and California State University track to the community colleges.

According to a November 2003 report of the California community colleges’ board of governors, the effect of the latest fee increase was to deny access to 175,000 students who couldn’t pay the fees, find classes due to cancellations or find seats in overenrolled courses. Already, the colleges are serving 15,000 students for whom they are not compensated. The combination of the new fee increase, the expected influx of formerly four-year university-bound students and a meager increase in the budget portends disaster, say education advocates like the California Federation of Teachers. At the same time, the state’s depressed economy is sending more adults to college to retool their skills and the college-age population is in the midst of a boom that will continue through 2009.

While the governor and state Legislature won’t acknowledge the gap between need and the state’s capacity to address it, the students can see it and they’re making it explicit with their "missing students" project. It was begun by two Laney College students last year, who sculpted two life-size, fiberglass figures of a man and a woman and replicated 125 of them with the help of other students and community college art faculty. These sculptures were spread across the state, where art faculty and students have turned them into statements about the toll of underfunding on students and the state’s future. The figures, which reside in strategic locations on campuses, were mounted on wheeled floats and led the march this spring. They will continue to make appearances at events in upcoming months as the community continues its fight for resources. In the meantime, pictures and more information about the spirit behind the figures can be seen at www.keepthedoorsopen.org/missingstudents/.
[Barbara McKenna]