Community Colleges Put Top Priority on Efforts to Increase Enrollment

Facing budget problems because of an enrollment decline, trustees of the Los Angeles Community College District decided on Wednesday that recruitment and retention of students should be the most important goals in the coming school year.

“This places us at a real crossroads. We have to prove we are an advancing district instead of a declining district,� said board Vice President Lindsay Conner.

Conner authored a motion that would make an increase in enrollment the “personal highest priority� of administrators at the district’s nine campuses. Trustee David Lopez-Lee proposed an amendment that called for growth of at least 5% in average daily attendance. A formula based on student enrollment and class hours is used to determine state funding. Both motions were approved unanimously by the seven trustees.

Average daily attendance in the district dropped steadily from about 70,000 in the 1981-82 academic year to about 49,000 in 1985-86. Attendance rose to about 52,000 the next year but dipped to 50,700 in the school year just ended.

The drop in attendance is cited as the main reason for possible cuts of $6 million or more in the proposed $264-million budget for 1988-89. District leaders fear another cycle of cutbacks in programs, which could lead to another decline in enrollment, and further budget problems.

“We have to show that the growth of ‘86-87 was the trend and the decline in ‘87-88 was the aberration,� Conner said.

Encouraged by Summer Increase

Officials said, however, that they are encouraged by an apparently large enrollment increase--perhaps as much as 60%--for the current summer semester compared to last summer. But that increase would put summer enrollment only back to about where it was two summers ago. The district last year cut summer classes because of concern over unsettled budget disputes in Sacramento.

Several teachers at Wednesday’s meeting said they worry that the quality of courses could be sacrificed to increase enrollment and that some of the less popular, but academically important, courses might be dropped. Conner said he wants academic quality maintained but that obtaining more funds through higher attendance is the key to quality.

The motion does not specify how or where administrators should recruit students, but trustees mentioned that more effort should be made both in the traditional pool of high school graduates and among immigrants who recently qualified for legal residence. The motion calls for the involvement of faculty, staff and students and requires monthly reports to the board.

The trustees also approved a new lease agreement that would keep district headquarters at its current location on West 7th Street until 1991, when they expect new headquarters to be completed on North Vermont Avenue, across from Los Angeles City College.

However, the new $1-million-a-year lease will squeeze the headquarters on 7th Street from seven floors to four floors. Eliminated will be the board meeting room and a suite of trustees’ offices which were criticized in election campaigns as luxurious. Meetings will be held on the campuses starting in the fall and some employees also will be moved to the campuses.

DECLINING STUDENT ATTENDANCE

Faced with declining attendance rates, and less money from the state, Los Angeles Community College District officials want to make student recruitment a top priority. Figures provided by the district show average attendance rates, derived from a weighted formula based on estimates of the number of students in class on particular days and the number of class hours each student takes during the academic year.

ACADEMIC YEAR NUMBER OF STUDENTS 1981-82 70,000 1982-83 69,000 1983-84 62,000 1984-85 53,000 1985-86 49,000 1986-87 52,000 1987-88 50,700