John E. Roueche, president of the Roueche Graduate Center at National American University, said that community colleges across the country should take heed of the lessons to be learned from community colleges districts in Arizona.
Arizona is known for its parsimony when it comes to funding higher education, but it made an unusually bold statement on that score when it reduced funding for Maricopa and Pima Community College Districts to zero for 2016. Pima and Maricopa are the two largest community college systems in the state.
“It’s a harbinger, I think, of things to come,” Roueche said.
Community colleges are also feeling the pinch in states such as Illinois and Louisiana, where state legislative assemblies are battling over the budget. Public universities and colleges in Illinois have not received state funding since July 1 of last year, and Gov. Bruce Rauner recently vetoed a bill that would fund both community colleges and the Monetary Award Program (MAP), tuition grants that go to the state’s neediest residents.
When states decrease funding for community colleges, institutions must resort to other means to keep operating, such as increasing tuition, fundraising, and restructuring their offerings or downsizing. Both Maricopa and Pima found ways to evolve and grow despite the lack of state support. Maricopa, under the chancellorship of current League president Rufus Glasper, developed a corporate college and partnerships with companies like Nike and Amazon to provide training for company employees.
Glasper, however, has repeatedly said that corporate investment cannot replace the loss of state investment.
