College cutbacks make it difficult to earn degrees by Magdalena Rosova

Not only higher tuition increases the cost of college. Colleges in U.S. are forced to lay off their teachers and eliminate some classes. That makes it more difficult for students to get into the courses and so it is harder to earn a degree. Students have to be very quick to get into courses, many of them stand in the back row of classrooms or even stay outside and take turns standing closest to the door to hear the lecture. Deep budget cuts for colleges caused delays in study for many and it means more time and also more money. Classes in colleges are totally packed and students will definitely not graduate on time and they hope they will graduate at all. Part-time in! structors were the first to be laid off and so there is not enough instructors to teach the core entry-level classes. Core courses are also crowded by upperclassmen and younger students can not get in. Some upperclassmen face even bigger difficulty, some of the upper-level classes have been cut entirely because they were not popular. A federal study of 1999-2000 graduates showed it took students 4.5 years on average to earn a bachelor's degree. But this number will definitely grow. Some colleges decided to increase some class sizes, but offered fewer sections. 400 students of Central Oregon Community College in Bend do not have even one of the courses they requested and can do nothing else then wait until next fall. 23 campuses in California raised tuition more than 30 percent and laid off hundreds of teachers and cut thousands of sections even though they increased class sizes. Some experts argue that money is not the only problem, but students say they are out of ! choices.

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by Magdalena Rosova for PocketNews (http://pocketnews.tv)

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