New president at Cabrillo College balks at Governor Brown’s funding plan
By Patrick Dwire
Press Bamemr
Matthew Wetstein, the new president of Cabrillo College, has taken issue with a controversial funding plan for the California Community College system announced by Governor Jerry Brown in January. At the same time, Cabrillo’s new CAO is rolling out a few new programs of his own aimed at making Cabrillo College more competitive should the Governor’s funding proposals be adopted.
In his final budget plan for FY 2018-19, Governor Brown proposed the California Community College system change its long-standing practice of funding based solely on enrollment to an incentive-based system where 25 percent of new funding will depend on how many students are coming from low-income families and students with federally funded Pell grants. An additional 25 percent of new funding will depend on a performance-based measure of the number of students actually graduating with A.A. degrees, certificates of program completion, or transfer to four-year universities.
While the new president admits the “completion stats are not where they should be at Cabrillo,” Wetstein explains that degree completion rates as criteria for funding are unfair to community colleges in high cost of living coastal areas, where many students by necessity have to work in full or part-time jobs and may take several years to graduate.
The performance-based metric is also unfair to colleges with a high number of older students or retirees with no real intent to graduate or transfer to four-year universities, according to Wetstein, and Cabrillo College serves a high number of students in both these categories, and shouldn’t be penalized for it.
Wetstein and seven other CAO’s of eight community college districts along California’s central coast all signed a letter to the State Senate Subcommittee on Education expressing “deep concern about the proposed (funding) formula,” with recommendations of a higher base level to work from and at least a two year transition before the new formula is fully implemented. The letter emphasizes the regional impact of the new funding formula “on at least three of our eight Central Coast colleges would be devastating.”
Wetstein has been on the job as president of Cabrillo College since February, coming from a 22-year career as a political science instructor and eventually a top level administrator for San Joaquin Delta College in Stockton. Wetstein’s resume includes some state-level policy work, serving as president of the Research and Planning Group, doing award winning research on the effects of the economic recession on students in the community college system.
Perhaps particularly attractive to the Cabrillo College search committee was Wetstein’s experience landing research funding and institutional grants totaling $8 million for San Joaquin Delta College, and overseeing the development of a new, $70 million science building at that college.
Wetstein explained that a priority of his stewardship of Cabrillo will need to include going out to the voters for approval of a bond issue for facility improvements on campus. Wetstein is very familiar with the legacy of Measure Q that failed to get the supermajority of 55 percent voter approval in 2016, the first time a bond issue for Cabrillo College failed to get voter approval.
“We will need to pursue another bond issue- but not immediately, because I know the memory (of Measure Q) is still there….but so is the need,” Wetstein said. Wetstein explained that one part of the problem is the success of the “curb appeal” of Cabrillo College- with a new, modern performing arts building and other improvements to the entrance of the campus on Soquel Drive- it can appear the college has plenty of funding.
“It’s not until you go into the internal parts of campus, especially the science and tech facilities, that you can see the need. But the need for the capital improvements on campus will need to be expressed in a better, more organized way…so taxpayers know exactly what they are getting for their money,” Wetstein said.
Last May, 2017, Cabrillo awarded 691 A.A. degrees, 405 A.S. degrees, 125 certificates of achievement, and 184 skills certificates. The graduating class of 2017 ranged in age from 18 to 70 years old, with a median age of 28. With a total enrollment of 13,594, only about 34 percent of students are enrolled full-time, with about 12 percent over the age of 50. As a Federally designated Hispanic Serving Institution, 42 percent of Cabrillo’s graduating class is Latino, according to Cabrillo College.
The California Community College system is the largest, single educational institution in the nation, serving more than 2.1 million full and part-time students across the state. According to state-wide statistics, community colleges train 70 percent of California nurses, and 80 percent of firefighters, law enforcement personnel and emergency medical technicians. Transfer students from community colleges to the University of California system currently account for 48 percent of UC’s bachelor’s degrees in science, technology, engineering and mathematics.
It has been reported the cost of college in the U.S. has increased 500 per cent since 1985, 2.5 times the rate of inflation. The Public Policy Institute of California estimates by 2025, California will face a shortage of 1 million college degree and certificate holders needed to fuel its workforce.
Governor Brown’s funding proposal for the state-wide community college system will be revisited in the “May Revise” of budget discussions in preparation for the adoption of the state budget before the start of the 2018-19 fiscal year on July 1, 2018.
