Community colleges can't accommodate all the students they expect. Officials consider remedies.
By ANITA KUMAR
Published September 30, 2003
LEESBURG - Gov. Jeb Bush told community college presidents Monday that the state must find a better way to pay for the huge increase in students expected over the next decade.
Bush did not say what the source of the funding might be, but said it shouldn't be tuition, which has increased steadily in recent years.
He said he expects tuition to go up between 5 and 8 percent next year. It went up 7.5 percent this year.
An increase in that range won't generate nearly enough money to pay for enrollment growth, which this year caused tens of thousands of students to be shut out of the state's 28 community colleges.
"We need to come up with a stable funding source," Bush said after the meeting. "What we are doing now does not match the ebb and flow of growth."
His two-hour talk with the presidents at Lake-Sumter Community College was not open to the public despite requests from several newspapers to attend.
Valencia Community College president Sanford Shugart, who ran the meeting, said the group meeting with Bush was the "Policy and Advocacy Committee" of the Florida Association of Community Colleges, which is not covered by Florida's open meetings law.
But several newspapers, including the St. Petersburg Times, argued that the group should have opened the session because community college presidents serve on the committee and are subject to the Sunshine Law.
"You can't say this is a totally different body," said Alison Steele, a Times attorney.
The State University Presidents Association, a group similar to the community college committee, agreed last year to open its meetings.
Bush said he was an invited guest at Monday's meeting, so closing it wasn't his decision.
Afterward, he criticized reporters for complaining.
"Wouldn't you like to know about the meeting maybe instead of all this self-righteous stuff?" he asked as he was leaving.
The discussion about enrollment funding came a few weeks after community colleges had to turn away about 35,000 students who were hoping to enroll.
The schools said they could not afford to offer them the classes they needed or wanted.
College officials have characterized the enrollment crunch as the most serious in decades.
The presidents expect the situation to get worse as Florida's school-age population continues to grow, more adults go back to school and more jobs require a college degree.
Under state law, Florida's community colleges must admit most students with a high school diploma. But years of financial woes are creating problems at many of the colleges, particularly those in urban areas.
Bush said the schools tried several innovative approaches this fall to help with student demand, including increasing online classes. But that wasn't enough to offset the funding shortfall.
The Legislature sliced $11-million from the community college budget this year, leaving no money for the 48,000 new students who managed to enroll.
Shugart said the presidents asked Bush to include enough money in next year's proposed state budget to pay for the past two years of unfunded enrollment.
Carl Kuttler, president of St. Petersburg College, said the presidents also discussed how they could help the governor lure several Fortune 500 companies Bush said are considering moving to Florida.
