Voices Question

Colorado has made huge cuts to higher education and the next budget has to potential of cutting state support for higher education by an additional 50% (about $300,000,000). This years Senate Bill 3 gave governing boards of public colleges and universities broad tuition-setting authority to off-set these cuts. Tuition is expected to rise about 9% per year for the next four years and services will also be reduced. There is less help for students in terms of tutoring, advising assistance and seeking financial aid. In the instructional area, class sizes are rising.

Larger class sizes.

In Washington State, our legislators asked us to "Do more with less." At the same time, to partially offset the drastic cuts to the community and technical colleges of Washington State, the legislature approved a 14% increase in tuition. Yet, we still do not have enough funding to provide enough classes for our students. I teach required composition courses, and many of us, myself included, accepted overloads. This means my students did not receive the attention and feedback they need. Our students have also lost a lot of their support through cuts in staffing. Doing more for less really means our students are paying more for less.

At Owens Community College, we are in better fiscal condition than many other colleges in Ohio. Unfortunately that is done on the backs of it's employees, both faculty, and staff. The college has lost accreditation for it's Nursing program because they didn't want to pay for faculty with Master's degrees, and many of our departments are woefully understaffed. The college has also, during negotiations, demanded us to take hits to our health care benefits while wages have not gone up near enough to cover those costs. The sad part is the college banked millions last year and won't share that largess with its employees.

Adjunct assignments are not available for next year because of the budget cuts, so I won't be able to teach in the Fall. Full-time professors have huge workloads, and class sizes are much larger. Many courses are now fully on-line or are a mix of face-to-face and on-line. Students are being short-changed as well as having to pay higher tuition. It's a disaster!

First, all of the beginning and most intermediate levels of courses for English as a Second Language were cut from our nearest community college. We have huge and ever-increasing numbers of English language learners in Texas. How do I encourage my high school students to pursue higher education if they cannot receive appropriate remediation at our local college? Second, my own child cannot pursue his desired degree due to the limit put on the number of times a course can be repeated (due to Texas legislative policy brought on by budget constraints). Again, when our community colleges can't serve struggling students, we're dooming them.

The cuts have affected many categorical programs on my campus and we are no longer able to provide them with supplemental monetary awards as we used to. We strive hard to relay to students that we offer more than just grants but it is disheartening when student's cant' get into a class, classes are cut, or they are spending more money for school supplies than they have before. We focus mostly on counseling and priority enrollment as the most advantageous component of our program to keep the student in our program. The cuts have also affected simple things like ordering of supplies in our office and the reduction of counselors in our dept.

I live in a rural town of 7000 people, surrounded by other rural towns. The two closest community colleges are 60 miles, and closest universities are 100 miles. We have a branch of one of those colleges. This gives the high school students and others the opportunity to earn basic college credits that will transfer to any Texas university when they continue their education. We also have a wind energy program that prepares students for high paying professions. Decreasing funding for community colleges would increase tuition, and many of the students would not be able to attend, or would be discouraged to attend at the university level.

One factor that is affecting my campus is the fact that the Special Ed. Dept. is being eliminated. Students who should receive those services will be swept aside. We do not have counselors; we have only one nurse to serve more than 800 children. Greater demands are being placed on teachers and staff who are already overworked thus creating even more stress. The time has come for teachers to start expressing themselves by letting the districts know what is acceptable and what is not. We need to step out of the shell and become active members of civil disobedience. Let board members know everywhere that we have the experience that they lack.

Budget cuts has an effect to new programs and current programs.

Our district asked for a wavier to increase class size. Many teachers had 24-28 students in a class which caused more behavior issues, tight classrooms, and teacher spead out too thin and increased paperwork and testing. We can not give quality education when we have so many students to attend to.

I teach 5th grade and we had a 24/1 classroom ratio having 6 teachers on this grade level. Next year we have been informed that we will have approximately 28/1 with 5 teachers. This process speaks against what professional educators have been advocating across the state of Texas, SMALLER CLASSES! Do our students deserve an educational environment that hinders academic performance? NO!

I went to college in the 1970s on a Basice Education Grant. Now, I have 3 daughters, 2 of which have now finished college. Both graduated in the top 10 students in their high school class but even with scholarships, they will be paying student loans for the rest of their lives. I teach in a low income school. With higher education cutting budgets, these student loans will go even higher. The students I teach will not see college as worth it. Also, new teachers are taking night jobs just to pay their loans. How can teachers give their best when they work both their day job and a night job?

budget cuts are decimating students' futures and given that the class cuts affect part-time teachers disproportionately, students can't get classes and teachers can't get work.