In California, where public institutions have struggled mightily amid a well-documented budget crisis, the number of students being turned away from open-access institutions is swelling for a second straight year. Many of the state’s community colleges have had to cut sections, meaning that enrollment is down. Demand, however, is higher than ever.

Take Los Rios Community College District, in greater Sacramento, for example. Classes at its four colleges started four weeks ago, but the institutions have a total of 40,000 students on various waiting lists for courses — or about one for every two students actually enrolled in a course.

Maximizing class space

One state eastward, state budget cuts have made their mark at the College of Southern Nevada, located in metropolitan Las Vegas, but they have not forced the institution to turn away students by the thousands like some in California. Instead, sacrifices are being made in other areas to accommodate for the 5% or so growth in the college’s enrollment.

“Nevada, like much of the country, is experiencing a very serious budget crisis (shortfall could be $3 million in the next biennium — 50% of the state budget), thus adding large numbers of new faculty positions to add a plethora of new class sections is simply not possible,” wrote Darren Divine, vice president of academic affairs at Southern Nevada, in an e-mail. “Having said that, we are trying to keep our entire full-time faculty lines already in the budget staffed, and are relying on part-time employees as much as ever to try and squeeze every single class section we can into the schedule.”

http://www.usatoday.com/news/education/2010-09-15-IHE-community-college-wait-lists15_ST_N.htm