College plans to 'borrow' its students

GLENDALE ? Faced with nearly a 5% enrollment dip, Glendale Community College's controller wants to use summer session enrollment to count toward the 2005-06 fiscal year's attendance numbers, in an attempt to preserve about $1.3 million in state funding.

The college traditionally uses summer session enrollment in budgeting for the upcoming fiscal year, but after losing the equivalent of 744 students from the 2004-05 year, college officials are trying to maintain funding levels. The college receives $3,500 per full-time equivalent student.

If the college board approves controller Ron Nakasone's recommendation, he would seek a strategy to "grow out" of the decline through marketing campaigns, building a larger reserve fund and hoping a new parking structure and allied health facilities ? which will be complete in the fall of 2007 ? will attract more students.

Nakasone called the plan "borrowing" and, like any loan, it must be paid back.

"I hope we grow out of this eventually," Nakasone said. "We do have a trend of growing so we would be able not to have to borrow from the summer and we'd be back in normal state."

But if the college board approves the borrowing, and enrollment does not increase, it could wind up with an ongoing deficit.

"It compounds the problem because we raised our base to a higher level, then it will drop even farther down," Nakasone said. "We have to set aside a larger reserve for the future. It's better to cut the reserve rather than salaries and expenditures we have gotten used to spending."

College board President Kathleen Burke-Kelly was unsure whether she would support the recommendation without more information, which she expects to see as soon as the board's June 26 meeting. "I need some additional information," she said. "I would be concerned about the future in terms of borrowing and continuing to borrow."

Attracting new students is a constant demand on the college anyway, Burke-Kelly said.

"Community colleges are very market-sensitive and they are always reinventing themselves," she said. "They are trying to be responsive to needs of the community."

She was also concerned about making such an important decision just before newly appointed Supt. Audre Levy supplants the retiring John Davitt on July 1.

A 235% jump in tuition over the last three years and a robust economy are two causes for the enrollment decline, Burke-Kelly said.

A robust economy creates jobs that students wouldn't normally have access to, compelling many to reduce their class load or quit altogether, she said.