Portland Community College | Portland, Oregon

Enrollment cap at PCC creates struggle for class seats

Photos and Story by James Hill

PORTLAND, Ore. Melissa Todd wants to be a nurse. The 23-year-old is considering Portland Community College’s nursing program, but knows there’s a strong chance she won’t be able to get a seat in the class. Last year, 429 students qualified for the program with room for just 122. Even more depressing, the Biology 101 class she hoped to take in the fall to prepare for nursing is full. Todd went online to register in the first hour it was offered, but the class times she needed to fit her job schedule were already filled.Despite growing demand for classes the last several years, PCC is now faced with a no-growth policy due to lack of revenue from the state. The state has been unable to reimburse the community colleges for enrollment growth.“I don’t know what to do,” said the Wilsonville resident. “It delays my plans considerably.”Unfortunately, the PCC tagline, “College that fits your life,” seems less appropriate for the largest post-secondary institution in Oregon. The state, which has cut community college budgets more deeply than the university or K-12 systems, has eroded student access for college. “This is sad,” comments Jesus “Jess” Carreon, president of PCC, “since community colleges really are Oregon’s greatest asset in the development of an educated and competitive workforce.”PCC needed $20 million over the next two years to balance the budget. Half of the money has come from raising tuition, and the rest has come from program and staff cutbacks. PCC’s tuition increased 29 percent this summer to $58 a credit hour.“We have 41 years in this community of building up a high-quality, affordable and accessible institution of higher learning,” said Carreon. “We are doing everything we can to keep it that way, and we will get through this. But in the short term, without proper funding from the state, it appears that thousands of students will be unable to continue or start their college education. “Low-cost classes are a key to our mission, but cost becomes irrelevant when you cannot provide the courses students need,“ he added.At PCC last spring, enrollment increased a whopping 13.5 percent from spring term 2001, beating all expectations. But the college’s decision to slow growth and turn away students for the first time ever resulted in an 8.6 percent drop in enrollment this spring from the previous year. PCC’s Rock Creek Executive Dean Bill Christopher says, “It’s safe to say many individuals simply never had the opportunity to enroll.” Before PCC implemented the no-growth policy, college enrollment had been increasing by approximately 5 percent a year the last five years. The pullback in offerings combined with the growth that would have occurred translates to approximately 10 percent or 10,500 students not getting a seat in class. Student leaders at the college are frustrated with the bottleneck that has occurred. Twenty-three-year old Adrienne Donovan-Boyd, student body president of Sylvania Campus, said, “I am up at 5 a.m. waiting for that 7 a.m. registration (online) because if you don’t register within the first 10 minutes, everything starts to fill up.”She has been particularly troubled with an inability to enroll in sequenced courses. “If you miss 201 of a class, then jump into 202 next term without the 201, it throws you off.”Donovan-Boyd does not blame the administration. “I think they’re doing everything they can, but they’re not getting the funding from the state to hold more classes.” Tuition increases, the other “stress point” according to Donovan-Boyd, concerns the student leader. “For students like me who made just $5,700 last year, it is a huge increase. Students are struggling.”Tuition at Oregon community colleges is relatively expensive in comparison to neighboring California, which charges residents $11 per credit hour. The average community college tuition in Oregon for the 2003-04 school year is $55.21. Fees, on average, are $4.81 per credit hour. Washington and Nevada community colleges charge between a low of $47.25 per credit hour to a high of $66.15. Many PCC programs have had to turn students away. Anatomy and physiology, gateway class for allied health programs, fills within minutes. PCC health programs cannot begin to serve the demand. In addition to the high call for nursing, radiography saw 225 qualified candidates with space for just 36 students. Dental hygiene had more than 250 applicants with room for 20. “It is so competitive,” says Andrea Wright, age 38, a resident of Milwaukie who had hopes of entering dental hygiene this winter. But before Wright can be considered for the program, she first needs to complete microbiology. She was unsuccessful getting a spot in a PCC class.Wright said she went to “three campuses, hoping someone would drop. It filled within 27 minutes on registration day. At one class there were 37 of us standing all around the room. We have exactly as many registered as on the waiting list but the faculty member said “’tuition only pays for half, the state pays for the rest and there is no money from the state.’”“The same thing at Rock Creek,” she added. “Eighteen of us there. That puts me one year away from entering the program. It has been so frustrating.” The Welding program had to drop the entire Saturday section of classes, and all of the daytime summer classes to meet budget. The waiting list for fall term now tops 50 students. “Most likely, we will only be able to serve half of them, at best,” said Stuart Savin, division dean of Math, Manufacturing and Transportation at the Rock Creek Campus.“We are looking closely at how to provide students greater access, despite our funding challenges,” said Carreon. “For example, we are reviewing ways to give degree-seeking students even greater priority and also possibly changing the times for certain courses. The board and I remain committed to access and an affordable education for our communities.”