Community College: A Case Study

Introduction

On July 24, 2014 President Barack Obama visited Los Angeles Trade-Tech Community College and described how “more young people are earning their college degrees than ever before” (Obama, 2014). The president felt that higher education can help people get the skills needed to fill vacant jobs and join the middle class. The community college system in California leads the nation in providing access to higher education (Bohn, Reyes, & Johnson, 2013) by helping students transfer to a university, obtain a degree/certificate, or take the necessary courses to promote within their field of employment. Moreover, fifteen community colleges in California have recently been granted the opportunity to offer baccalaureate degrees to its

Even though community colleges experienced these increases total revenue per student decreased by approximately 2% due to the significant decrease in state and local appropriations. According to Murphy and Katsinas (2014) state appropriations accounted for a greater percentage of the overall money colleges receive per student. Consequently, when the amount of resources from the state decreased from 2000 to 2010 by 19%, it caused an overall 2% reduction in revenue per student (Murphy & Katsinas, 2014). After the 2008 recession, California projected to operate with a $42 B dollar deficit in 2009 and its fiscal health deteriorated further. By 2010 California had the worst credit rating in the Nation (Lin, 2008) because of its fiscal policies and because of the inability to adjust its tax base as a result of proposition 13 (Cohen & Drier, 2010). The State of California attempted to mitigate and adapt to its own fiscal challenges was by offering less funding for community colleges. Due to the instability associated with appropriations, community colleges must develop dynamic budgets that have the capacity to overcome fluctuations in revenue and enable the college to offer affordable access to higher education to its

Personnel costs include the salaries paid to administrators, instructors, and staff as well as the cost to provide benefits (Israel & Kihl, 2005). Exhibit 3 reveals how Los Angeles Mission College spent on average 90% of their budget on personnel costs. Community college administrators consist of the president of the college followed by three vice presidents that are responsible for academic affairs, student services and administrative services. The department of academic affairs is responsible for developing and executing the curriculum of the college while the purpose of student services is to provide academic support, guidance, and resources to finance their education. The department of administrative services, supports the other two departments by processing payroll, executing contracts, providing security, maintenance and operations, and taking the lead in the development of the budget of the