From the Governor on Funding of Higher Ed in Colorado

Here is the latest on the Budget/Funding issue in Colorado and how it will affect Higher Education. I’m not only watching this as someone in the system, but also with a son who is entering the College System in the fall. Our household has been a little nervous about what will happen (we’ve already checked out schools in Wyoming as back-up options).  Maybe he’ll be able to stay in Colorado for at least the next two years.

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
MONDAY, APRIL 13, 2009

CONTACT

Evan Dreyer, 720.350.8370, evan.dreyer@state.co.us

GOV. RITTER: HIGHER EDUCATION FUNDING PROTECTED FROM MASSIVE CUTS

Gov. Bill Ritter said today that massive funding cuts to higher education are not an option because Colorado would forfeit $760 million from the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act.

In a letter to the legislature’s Joint Budget Committee, Gov. Ritter said new guidelines make it clear that a previous proposal to cut higher education by $300 million would have dropped the state below the $555 million level of FY05-06.

Going below that level would make Colorado ineligible for all $760 million in State Stabilization Funds from the Recovery Act.

“Clearly, it would be counter-productive to cut higher education by $300 million only to lose the entire $760 million in Stabilization Funds,” Gov. Ritter said. “I will continue working with the JBC and the legislature to close the budget gap. This includes ongoing discussions with Pinnacol Assurance and exploring other ways to close the remaining $300 million budget gap.”

Gov. Ritter said the Stabilization Funds will be used to protect higher education funding. In fact, state funding for higher education can be maintained at the original FY 2008-09 level of $706 million for the current 2008-09 fiscal year and for the next two fiscal years by utilizing State Stabilization Funding from the Recovery Act.

“Over the past few months, working in partnership with the JBC and legislative leadership from both parties, we have closed most of the $1.5 billion budget shortfall caused by the downturn,” Gov. Ritter said. “With just a few weeks remaining in the legislative session, we have more work to do to balance the budget, and we will balance this budget.

“As we make the same types of tough decisions that every family and every business is making in this downturn, we must protect long-term investments in education, job-creation and economic-development that will lead Colorado forward and position us for a strong recovery.”

Here is a breakdown of state funding for Colorado’s public colleges and universities in FY08-09:

Institutions of Higher Education
Original FY08-09 General Fund

Adams State College
$ 14,608,449

Mesa State College
$ 24,005,607

Metro. State College of Denver
$ 49,713,412

Western State College
$ 12,173,017

Colorado State University System
$ 146,891,512

Fort Lewis College
$ 12,736,330

University of Colorado System
$ 209,099,449

Colorado School of Mines
$ 23,237,386

University of Northern Colorado
$ 44,086,311

Community College System
$ 142,320,783

Area Vocational Schools
$ 11,202,546

Local District Junior Colleges
$ 15,890,257

TOTAL
$ 705,965,059

Chronology of Gov. Ritter’s Budget-Balancing Actions:

· Sept. 25: Implemented hiring freeze and construction delays.

· Nov. 1: Balanced budget request submitted to the JBC.

· Jan. 15: Revised balanced budget request for FY 08-09 submitted to JBC reflecting December revenue forecast.

· Jan. 27: Revised balanced budget request for FY 09-10 submitted to JBC reflecting December revenue forecast.

· Feb. 24: Revised balanced budget request for FY 08-09 and 09-10 submitted to JBC reflecting new caseload information.

· March 24: Federal Stabilization spending plan submitted to JBC for FY 08-09 through FY 10-11.

· April 10: Revised Federal Stabilization spending plan submitted to JBC for FY 08-09 through FY 10-11 reflecting new federal guidelines.

Funding Impact to Community Colleges in Colorado

I haven’t updated my blog for a while, but now I really have something to talk about. The state budget cuts in Colorado will have a big impact on the state of Colorado.  I am concerned because I working for the Colorado Community College System and my son plans to attend a Community College next year. However, if the proposed budget cuts are passed, it could affect all citizens of the state.  

The Joint Budget Committee’s Long Bill will have devastating impacts on Colorado Community Colleges.

The Long Bill, as introduced, would slash Colorado Community College funding from $142.3 million of state support to $51.6 million. This decrease will cut off affordable access to higher education in Colorado.  Not since FY 1988-89 have community colleges been funded at such a low level. Indeed, the community colleges will be funded at the FY 1988-89 level, yet serve 37,500 more students today than we did 20 years ago.

The reduction in spending on community colleges will further plunge the State into recession. Studies show that for every $1 invested in community colleges, more than $7 is created in economic activity. This $91 million cut in community colleges will cost the state at least $637 million in lost economic activity.

The Community Colleges will be forced to close colleges and campuses. These closures will not be isolated to small colleges, but rather urban and rural colleges alike will face closure. The legislature must run legislation to close each college and millions of dollars of historical investment in these institutions would be thrown away.

Large and small colleges alike would close, causing layoffs of thousands of employees.  If the larger colleges are closed,  four colleges would close; we would cut off higher education access to nearly 52,000 students; 2,700 full-time workers would lose their jobs; there would be an annual income loss of nearly $50 million.

If smaller and larger colleges close, a total of 9 colleges would close in urban and rural areas alike; 33,800 students would no longer be educated; more than 2,000 people would lose their jobs; there would be an annual income loss to the state of $37.3 million.

Affordable Higher Education will no longer exist in Colorado. The de-funding of community colleges in the Long Bill means that students will face massive tuition hikes of  65% to 70% tuition increase to make up for the slash in funding.  Roughly 18,750 Coloradans will no longer be able to afford a community college education. It will be cheaper for Colorado citizens to go to college out-of-state than to stay in-state.

During recessionary times, Coloradans turn to community colleges to get re-training and new skills so they can compete in the 21st century economy. The current recession has been devastating for many Colorado families. These Coloradans rely on Community Colleges to help them get the skills they need to get a job and to support their families. Community College enrollment is surging more than 11% as unemployed citizens come to us to get job skills. We offer job solutions and hope to dislocated workers. With a 63% drop in state funding, we will no longer be able to offer opportunity and hope to the unemployed.

Job Training and Career and Technical Education Opportunities will vanish. Colorado Community Colleges train more than half of the state’s nurses. We also train more than 90% of the state’s first responders in such professions as paramedics, emergency medical technicians, fire science, and police officers. We provide training for the new energy economy and for traditional energy. We are the career and technical training colleges, with one-third of our students in career and technical training programs. Yet, these programs are very expensive. We will no longer be able to offer these high-cost programs at a time when there are severe shortages in the workforce for these workers.

Community Colleges are a significant economic development engine for their communities. For example, in recent years, Vestas has announced that it would bring over 1,000 jobs to Colorado. Pueblo Community College and Front Range Community College will be providing the training for the company’s workers. Our community colleges were important factors in attracting this company. Thousands of companies use community colleges for their workforce training. We would no longer be able to play the integral role in attracting and retaining industry to Colorado.

Our Colleges are integral to helping stem the high school drop-out rate in Colorado and to providing remedial education to those who are not ready for college. Without funding we will be unable to continue our important role in these areas.

Colorado Community colleges play an integral role in providing job skills to inmates so that they do not end up back in prison. We will not be able to continue to be the solution to preventing recidivism in Colorado.

Colorado Community Colleges are real colleges for real people. Do not slash our funding and cut off opportunities to higher education for minority and low income Coloradans!

Contact Jason Hopfer, 303-880-2023, or Moira Cullen, 303-868-8452 for further information.

It’s done! (and other things)

I finally finished the latest installment of my husband’s website! The website address is http://www.eldonwarrenarts.com. Thanks to Highslide JS, the paintings page turned out very nice. Much thanks for sharing the code for this very cool pop up!

And the other things? My son is doing much better in school this year and I’m not sure what happened. I’m getting more certain every day that’s it’s going to be a good year. Maybe the best year he’s had in a long time.

He is looking at colleges and has several teachers who are giving him good advice and being very honest about what it takes to make it through college. He is even talking about graduate school. He is almost anxious to go to school and says most of the time that it was a good day.

So for the other parents who’ve struggled with their unmotivated students, there is hope. Hang in there, support them in their efforts and help them find something they love to do.

D

Catching up – still!

We’ve been going through the house and de-mucking along with the other odds and ends I have to get caught up on.  We’ve collected a lot of stuff in the 8 years we’ve lived here!  The last two years of working mostly on school work didn’t help either.  I think I’m going to be catching up for a long time; finding things I promised to do and forgot about, things I put off because I was too stressed and the daily tasks that I dread.

My son is settling into school and seems to be doing a little better this year.  He has a group of friends he hangs out with at school and they get together during the weekends.  I’m taking the approach that since this is his senior year he is will decide his own future.  I’m trying to keep updated and ask him what he needs to help him be successful, but this is his show.

He’s taking a full load, but his attitude is a lot better this year.  He loves his psychology and philosophy classes and is hoping to major in psychology in college.  He really enjoys his chemistry class (much better than biology) and he’s considering minoring in chemistry.  I’m trying to get organized enough to get the senior meeting schedule added to my other meetings and things I try to get done each week.  How in the world did I work, go to school and stay sane during the last two years?  I’m having trouble finding enough time to work and look for an Instructional Design job!  Somehow I’ve got to squeeze in driving time for my son so that he’ll have his license in the next several months and then we get to buy him a car.  Fun days!

Here we go again

Another school year has started and this is hopefully my son’s last year.  He’s finally a senior, but it’s going to be a long year.  I’ve already called the school counselor to see how many credits he needs to graduate.  I also need to know the last day he can drop classes – I think he’s in over his head. 

I know it’s strange for a parent to encourage their child to do the bare minimum, but from past experience I think that’s the best choice for him.

1st Anniversary

I was editing a post I made yesterday and noticed that I started this blog a year ago. Looking back, it seems like such a long time ago. Probably because I got lost in school work and focused on finishing my program.

I’m looking for classes or some other way to keep building my skills. I’m considering Lynda.com - there’s a lot of information and I can work through the tutorials at my own pace. My only question is whether or not I will be disciplined enough to work consistently. Hmmmm….. Decisions, decisions.

Now what?

I love competition! I watch with wonder when Tiger Woods dominates his opponents, underdogs come from behind to win, the touching and inspiring stories are told about the Olympic athletes. What sets these people apart from everyday people? How can I raise my bar so that I accomplish my goals or should I be satisfied with being average and just getting through the week?

I finished my MA in Instructional Design several weeks ago and the class get-together/party is over. The new semester for students who haven’t finished the program starts tomorrow and I’m almost sad that I’m not starting another class. Now what?

My husband thinks since I want to keep building my skills and I’m use to working on projects at night after work, I should just keep going. What?!!! Is he crazy? Funny thing is that I think he’s right.

I want to become a guru – in Flash and CSS for starters. I also want to learn how to do scenarios and branching in Captivate. I have money to take classes and I miss working on projects so it looks like this is the next step. Now I have to find some classes that teach me what I want to know. Here I go!

Now we’re done!

The August 2006 Cohort from CU Denver got together over the weekend to celebrate graduating from the ILT program. It was great to finally put faces with names and get to meet everybody in person; some personality traits don’t come through on-line. It would have been nice to meet everyone f2f at the beginning of the program.

We went to Red Rocks on Saturday for a hike. The hike was canceled because of the rain, but I got some nice photographs.

Our hike was canceled because of the rain, but the view was incredible!

Here’s another one. I forgot how beautiful it is out there. We’ll have to go back when it snows and add to my photo collection. For more photos check out my Flickr link.

Little Waterfalls

Another beautiful view

I finished!

I finished!  I started this blog for an assignment in one of my MA classes in the Information and Learning Technologies program at the University of Colorado Denver.  I’ve been working on my MA for the last two years.  It took over my life.  I turned in my last assignment and got my final grade last week.  It is still sinking in that I am done. 

I set a goal of getting a 4.0 in the program.  I did it!  When I was about half way through the program, I decided to modify my goal a little and I tried to get as much as I could out of every assignment and learn as much as I could.  I made myself and my family crazy, but I think I did it.   

I understand what my neighbor, a single mom who just finished her BA in business at Denver University, meant when she said she was a little lost after she graduated.  I keep finding myself wandering to the computer at night to work on assignments before I remember that I don’t have anything to do.  Instead I check email which has slowed down a lot, spend more time with my son and look at job postings.  Now it’s time to apply what I learned and take on a more challenging job.  I’m working on a couple of applications and getting my portfolio out as much as I can. I’m also catching up on neglected tasks and making a list of topics and skills I want to improve.  I can hardly wait!

Update

It’s summer break – we made it through another school year. Toward the end of the semester since my research project officially ended before the end of my son’s school year, we had some struggles. While I was collecting data for my research project, he complained about talking to me every night about his school progress. After the project ended, I stopped collecting data. His grades dropped again. Had he become dependent on my checking up on him?

He fluctuated between handing in assignments and seeming disconnected and not handing in his work.  He also continued with the pattern of making excuses about why he wasn’t doing well in his classes. We haven’t made it to the point where he starts taking responsibility and quit finding any reason possible why he isn’t doing his school work. He continues to talk about going to college, but doesn’t seem to understand what that involves.  He told me that he didn’t want to work as hard on his school as I’ve worked on my ILT classes.

It seemed for a while that he had a clarifying moment toward the end of the year when he got his ACT scores. His overall score was high enough (high 20’s) that he could apply to any of the state colleges, but, his grade point average is low enough that they don’t have to accept him.

Where do we go from here? He passed all of his classes and is on track for graduating next spring. He has decided to take a very heavy load his senior year and refuses to rethink his decision. He is taking psychology and philosophy and says that those are the classes he is really looking forward to. We will continue working with him this summer and we should be able to tell within the first several weeks of school whether we helped encourage him and motivated him. Nobody ever said this was going to be easy.