Begging for an education

My daughter has snagged spots in a data analysis class, a Native American history course and another on comparative freedom movements of the 1960s. She’s hot on the trail of a biology class that is rumored to have an opening.

But the course that she and her classmates at San Francisco State really need — Crashing Classes 101 — isn’t among the school’s offerings. And if it were, it wouldn’t have an empty seat.

I just returned from helping my daughter move into an apartment and register for the classes she needs. And despite steep stairs and narrow hallways, the process of moving was infinitely easier than navigating the budget-crippled Cal State system.

On paper, it is not as bad this year as last, when class cuts and furlough days cheated students of classes and overloaded professors. Administrators say there seems to be less chaos; students are taking the cuts in stride.

They have become grim-faced tacticians, obsessed not with self-discovery or academic progress, but with rounding up the magical 12 credits, typically four classes, they need to qualify as full-time students to keep their financial aid, stay in the dormitory, remain on their parents’ medical insurance policies.

It’s a new world, a paradigm shift, where snagging the last spot in a 3½-hour critical thinking course feels like winning the lottery, and ballet at 8 a.m. on Friday sounds good even to a student with two left feet.

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It doesn’t take a college degree to figure out what’s wrong. At California State University’s most popular campuses, there are more students than spaces in class this fall, because of the state funding cuts and a moratorium last spring on midyear transfers.

“Everybody is struggling to add students to classes to the maximum limit they are supposed to hold,” said Cynthia Rawitch, head of undergraduate studies at Cal State Northridge. “The faculty is as frustrated as the students are. We struggled with this last year and it was supposed to get better. Instead it seems like it’s getting worse.”

Cal State Northridge added a dozen classes this week and opened 75 new sections of math and English this month for incoming freshmen — most of whom require remedial classes. Spots in all those new classes were gobbled up.

“No matter how fast we added sections,” Rawitch said, “we could never cover the entire demand.

“We know students are standing in doorways, begging for classes. And professors are willing to take them. They say, ‘I’m supposed to have 50, but I’ll take 60.’ But where does it stop? And what does that do to the quality of instruction?”

Freshmen and seniors get priority, but professors have the flexibility to decide who else to take.

Some go for random chance, pulling names out of a hat. Others rely on GPA, major or credits needed for graduation. Some require essays, others hard-luck stories.

“It’s messy and subjective,” one San Francisco State professor told me, describing the stream of dejected students filing out of his English class after he announced that crashers “have almost zero chance of getting in.”

“You feel like you’re chopping down tender saplings,” he said after class. But he already had a full class, a wait list and an inbox full of prospective students’ e-mails.

Everywhere I went on the San Francisco campus this week, I saw hallways lined with weary students, milling around hoping closed classes would open.

They were full of heartbreaking stories and hopeful advice: Beg, cry, bombard the professors with e-mails. Sit in the front of the class and make eye contact. Hang around and introduce yourself. Keep showing up day after day, even if the professor tries to shoo you away.

“They must be like vets who have to put dogs to sleep,” my daughter said as she stumbled into her apartment Wednesday, after 10 hours on campus and three attempts to crash classes.

“They can’t get too attached to you, because they know they won’t be able to let you in.”

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It’s a process that wears down both professors and students, who went through this same drill last fall, in the first year of draconian budget cuts. Back then, my daughter recalled, “if you could find a spot on the floor, most professors would let you in.”

This year, “it’s a political issue, not just an educational one,” said Rawitch. “The faculty is torn and frustrated. What they want to do is engage in teaching and learning.”

Instead, they are engaged in the odd process of trying to run students off.

I sat in on an English class with a roster of 25 and twice as many would-be crashers. The professor warned of the heavy reading and writing demands, the unforgiving attendance requirements.

He had failed almost one-third of his students in past semesters, he said. I waited for the exodus, but no one left.

He tried to steer some toward other classes. “I don’t want 15 or 20 kids hanging around with no hope of getting in,” he said bluntly. “Unless you’ve got a uniquely compelling reason, you are wasting your time here.”

The girl in front of me started to raise her hand, then brought it down over her mouth instead.

I’d overheard her telling a classmate that this was her fourth attempt to crash the course. She is a fifth-year senior and can’t graduate until she takes it.

The professor went down the list of reasons that would not make the cut: You need the credits to keep your financial aid. The class is a required prerequisite. You need the course to graduate. “Those are everybody’s reasons,” he said. “I’m sorry but that’s not good enough.”

A dozen students grabbed their backpacks and left. But the would-be graduate didn’t budge.

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