Glendale College’s student town hall meeting on Thursday answered questions about the upcoming summer session as well as the status of the budget crisis on campus.
“We’re stuck between a rock and a hard spot,” Suzanne Sargysyan, ASGCC president and student trustee said. “There isn’t much we can cut that doesn’t affect the students.”
Sargysyan did confirm that summer session will be held despite the reduction of funding to community colleges in California. The price of tuition will rise from $36 to $46 for the summer session. The price will continue to increase for the following semesters.
At least 120 classes have been assured.
Glendale College currently faces $8 million in deficits. A statewide $9 billion deficit affects all 112 community colleges in California.
Due to the cuts, class enrollment is more competitive between students and there has been a 5.6 percent reduction in class numbers for spring and fall semesters. Student workers have also been reduced to deal with the budget.
The town hall meeting focused on Gov. Brown’s tax initiative, known as “The Schools and Local Public Safety Protection Act.” If passed, the initiative would generate $6.9 billion for the state. The initiative would increase sales tax by one-fourth cent for four years.
The initiative would also increase income tax by 1 percent for those who make more than $500,000, by 2 percent for those who make more than $600,000, and by 3 percent for those who make more than $1 million for seven years.
In addition, it will bring in $300 million to be divided among all the community colleges.
The Associated Students are rallying support for this particular initiative to pass.
Aside from budget talks, Lucy Agazaryan, vice president of administration for ASGCC, spoke about the new requirement for transfer students that will be needed to be accepted by CSUs.
“You would not be able to transfer to CSU without the transfer AA, and the UCs are in negotiations to do it as well,” said Agazaryan.
The transfer AA is the certification that would replace the IGETC requirements. Students will have to take a few more classes to receive it. Currently, there are only transfer AA’s for speech, math, kinesiology and sociology.
Campus organization vice president Juliana Kim said that the college is working on a campus beautification process, which includes walking around collecting trash and taking pictures of classrooms that need to be repaired. The project’s budget is $30,000.
The next town hall meeting will be on May 3.
