Colorado’s far-flung community college system offers the best “bang for the buck” in the state higher education system, for students and taxpayers alike. But these vital educational resources need extra money soon if they are to keep serving their role as the door to opportunity for thousands of Colorado students.
Both the value of community colleges and their continuing funding plight have been underscored by the efforts of Denver’s Lincoln High School to allow seniors to delay graduating and take a fifth year of classes at a community college before receiving their high school diplomas. That tactic allowed the high school to pay college costs with the state aid of about $6,600 it received for each of its claimed high school students.
The plan may have been creative, but because it only shifted funds from the K-12 budget to community colleges, it didn’t add any money to the state’s overall educational funds. The Colorado Board of Education has ruled that such “fifth-year” programs as Lincoln’s and a similar effort at Sheridan High School are technically illegal.
Lincoln’s new principal, Antonio Esquibel, has promised to find the funding to send all his students to college, seeking private funds if necessary. We wish him well. But we also urge next year’s legislature to allocate some of the extra revenues produced by the 2005 Referendum C to bolster community college funding across the board.
Even without such “fifth-year” programs, thousands of high school students already attend up to six credits worth of community college courses in established programs that enhance their high school diplomas while giving them a taste of higher education. But community colleges serve an even more crucial function in providing technical and vocational training as well two-year associate degrees that can be converted into upper-division standing at most of the state’s four-year colleges.
Despite their unquestioned worth, community colleges were hit even harder than four-year colleges and universities during the state’s fiscal crisis. Rapid increases in enrollment teamed with actual cuts in state dollars produced a 35.3 percent decrease in state support for each student. Because of their commitment to provide opportunity for low-income students, community colleges were unable to offset those cuts with the sharp increases in tuition adopted by such campuses as the University of Colorado at Boulder.
Creative thinking like that at Lincoln and Sheridan should always be applauded. But such stopgaps are no substitute for a strong level of support for Colorado’s priceless community college system.
