Pricing Opportunity Out of the Market? : Education: Some fear that raising community college fees will put the schools beyond the reach of those who need them most. But a closer study suggests a more complex picture.

It was the cornerstone of California’s grand scheme for higher education--a network of free community colleges where rich and poor were treated alike, where even the most impoverished student could flex his intellect and bootstrap his way to gainful employment or a spot at a four-year college.

“We really were aiming toward a classless society,” said Clark Kerr, former University of California president and architect of the 1960 Master Plan for Higher Education, which set up the community college system as the port of entry for disadvantaged or lower-achieving students.

For a decade, however, community college proponents have been warning that the Legislature’s decision to charge ever-increasing enrollment fees has harmed the egalitarian dream. And they predict that thousands of poor students will be turned away next fall if lawmakers adopt Gov. Pete Wilson’s proposal to raise the basic charge once again--from $13 to $20 a unit.

“Do we see the community colleges as the first and last opportunity for people to get educated . . . and make a contribution as a taxpayer citizen? Or do we think it’s a dung heap we don’t have to pay much attention to?” Assemblywoman Marguerite Archie-Hudson (D-Los Angeles) said after Wilson called for the fee increase two weeks ago as part of his proposed budget.

“I think the governor sees them as a dung heap,” she said.

But such dire rhetoric does not always square with reality, statistics and interviews show. And although heated passions are sure to be part of the coming political debate over what to charge at community colleges, there is plenty of room for spin and doubt over what fee increases mean for the state’s most plebeian--and flexible--of higher education institutions.

Hanging in the balance are people such as Michael Bowen, a 22-year-old unemployed warehouse clerk who seemed worried last week about the governor’s proposal.

Bowen came to Los Angeles Southwest College to register for classes he hopes will lead to a computer science degree--and a better life than the $25-a-week room he is renting on a $91-a-week unemployment check.

“Thirteen dollars (per credit) is pushing it. I’ll be eating one meal a day,” he said. “But if he raises it to $20, I can just forget it.”

To Archie-Hudson, who chairs the Assembly’s Higher Education Committee and served on the Los Angeles Community College Board for eight years, Bowen’s story reflects a larger truth. She maintains that Wilson’s 54% fee increase would be especially onerous to poor minorities, particularly black men.

Likewise, community college officials have predicted that nearly 98,000--many African Americans or first-generation Asian Americans--would disappear from their statewide rolls of 1.4 million students. Panicked Los Angeles district administrators predicted that their enrollment would plunge 20% to its lowest point in history.

Those predictions, however, are based on surveys that asked students last year how they would respond to a fee increase--but did not mention anything about additional financial aid for the poorer students, something the governor has proposed in his budget.

And state college officials based their prediction, in part, on their December report examining a 7% enrollment drop after the state increased fees last year. Although the report shows that 14% of the undergraduates who left blamed the increase in their per-unit charge as the major problem, 66% cited other problems--chiefly the lack of campus parking.

In 1988, Archie-Hudson wrote her doctoral thesis at UCLA about what fee increases during the early 1980s did to disadvantaged minority groups. Her conclusion: That “contrary to expectations” there was no proof that higher fees drove blacks and Latinos away, although the charges did discourage women.

The only way the proposed fee increase could hurt poor or minority students, maintains Maureen DiMarco, Wilson’s education secretary, is if community colleges are not able to deliver financial aid in time--something college officials admit they are ill-equipped to do.

Even with the proposed increase, DiMarco emphasizes that California community college fees would rank 44th in the country. Yet she acknowledges that that may not satisfy many Californians who now pay charges that are dead last, far below those in New York, Illinois and Michigan.

“It’s as close to free as you can get,” she said. “But when you are used to getting something for free . . . you now think this is a great imposition.”

A community college in every locale--that was the linchpin of the master plan, which established a three-tiered system of higher education founded on the idea of accessibility. Although the top 12 1/2% of the state’s high school graduates could qualify for UC and the top 33 1/3% could go to Cal State, community colleges were to be the unobstructed portal to academe for those not blessed with competitive test scores, family wealth or a career path.

Considered an extension of grade schools, these junior colleges, as they were called, were not only supposed to educate and transfer students to four-year universities, they were also charged with providing vocational training and remedial classes.

Today, there are 109 schools run by 71 locally elected boards, all under the umbrella of a 16-member appointed state board. The typical student they serve is 27 years old, most likely a woman with children who goes to class part time while working at a job that pays less than $18,000 a year.

Overall, college officials say, the percentage of whites has dropped to 53% while the numbers of Latinos, Asian Americans, non-citizens and those seeking basic skills classes have increased. In Los Angeles, the largest district with nine campuses and 102,000 students, there are more than two minority students to every white one.

Experts say the statewide 1.4 million enrollment can churn for a variety of reasons. People leave and enter classes because they use community colleges like “churches and museums,” said Clifford Adelman, a U.S. Department of Education researcher.

“You got a baptism you need? You go to church. There’s a special show of an Impressionist artist? You go to the museum. That’s what you need at that time for that purpose. And community colleges are very accommodating to people’s life rhythms,” said Adelman, author of a 1992 federal report about two-year institutions.

But California community college supporters have claimed that the state began to tamper with that educational rhythm when it decided in 1984 to impose a $5-per-credit fee on all students. Enrollment immediately dropped more than 5% but bounced back and thrived through the end of the decade.

Then the economy hit the skids. Grappling with monumental budget shortfalls, Wilson and lawmakers raised the fee on underclassmen to $6 in 1991. That went to $10 in spring, 1993, and $13 a unit last fall.

Hardest hit were the 131,000 students who had their bachelor’s degrees--typically economically better-off whites who took courses for occupational reasons or personal interests. Their fees skyrocketed from $6 to $50 a unit last spring.

More than 40%, or about 54,000, of these students disappeared, figures show. College officials said half were people who needed job retraining but Adelman had another interpretation for the drop, which he said was not surprising.

“They were there to take aerobics,” he said. “At $10 a credit, it’s cheaper than the spa. But at $50, you go to Spa Lady.”

Meanwhile, community college administrators say they lost another 81,000 undergraduates who were scared away by the $4 increase in the spring and $3 hike in the fall. In a December report, officials indicated the decline was “primarily attributable” to the fee increases. They have subsequently said many of those lost were poorer minorities, for whom the modest rise compounded other school-related expenses such as books, child care and transportation.

But the report’s own tables tell a different tale. Two out of three departing undergraduates interviewed blamed other problems such as parking, lack of classes because 4,000 course sections closed, and inconvenient class times.

Although community college officials predict that the governor’s proposed $7 fee increase would scare more students away, they acknowledge that his plan includes a “substantial amount” of financial aid to bail out poor students. Wilson wants to give students an additional $90 million in aid, plus another $4.8 million to help community colleges distribute it.

DiMarco, Wilson’s education secretary, said the governor’s plan would force community colleges to take bolder steps to ease “sticker shock” for poorer students by explaining and delivering more financial aid--something administrators do not do well even now.

“We have financial aid offices that are really quite understaffed for the chore,” said Charles McIntyre, state director of research for community colleges. “They simply can’t process the applications in a way that is sufficiently timely for people to get fee waivers.”

Last year 24% of students statewide received some aid, although 66% were eligible.

At Southwest College, built in the wake of the Watts riots as the educational gateway for some of Los Angeles’ poorest students, there is a two-month backlog for financial aid requests, even without Wilson’s fee hike.

If the governor gets his way, said dean of student services Brenda A. Scranton, the school will have to begin marketing itself and telling prospective students they must plan ahead, making it less possible for students to simply walk on campus and take a course.

“Because community colleges have responded to everyone, the thought was you could come whenever you wanted to come and you will be taken care of,” Scranton said. “But that’s no longer true.”

Upward Spiral

California’s community college students paid no unit fees until 1984. Since then, charges have nearly tripled. They would rise 54%, to $20 a unit, for most students under Gov. Pete Wilson’s 1994-95 budget proposal. About a third of Wilson’s proposed 3.4% increase in the system’s budget would come from higher fees.

* 1984-85: $5 a unit, $50 maximum for all students

* 1991-92: $6 a unit, $60 maximum for all students

* Spring, 1993: $10 a unit for undergraduates, $50 a unit for students with bachelor’s degrees or higher. No maximum on total fees.

* Fall, 1993: $13 a unit for undergraduates. No increase for those with bachelor’s degrees or higher.

* 1994-95: $20 a unit for undergraduates. No increase for those with bachelor’s degrees.

Source: Chancellor’s office, California community colleges