<p>"College applicants are facing one of the toughest years ever to gain admission to the nation's public colleges and universities as schools grapple with deep budget cuts and record numbers of applications.</p>
<p>As cash-poor state governments slash budgets, colleges are capping or cutting enrollment despite a surge in applications from high school seniors, community college students and unemployed workers returning to school.</p>
<p>The increased competition means more students will be turned away, forced to attend pricier private institutions or shut out of college altogether.....</p>
<p>Colleges that previously accepted all qualified students are becoming selective, while selective schools are becoming more so. Most community colleges have open-access policies, but demand for classes is so intense that many students can't get the courses they need.....</p>
<p>Low-income, minority students could face the roughest road to admission because they often can't afford private colleges and don't have the resources or academic credentials to compete with students from wealthier families and better high schools, he said.</p>
<p>The enrollment caps could also threaten President Barack Obama's goal of making the U.S. the leader in college attainment by 2020 and undermine the nation's economic competitiveness, college officials say.</p>
<p>"We're reducing enrollment when we should be increasing it," said Scott Lay, president of the Community College League of California. Experts say states should increase access to college during a recession so that unemployed workers can train for new jobs.</p>
<p>The American Opportunity Credit should be credited with generating a lot of community college demand because it allows students to take $2,000 in courses and expenses with 100% reimbursement. The enrollment process at my daughter’s school is that you need to enroll at least a month before classes start if you want a shot at decent course choices.</p>
<p>Limited supply and booming demand means that there is a crunch and you can’t just crank up capacity overnight, even if states had the money to do so.</p>
<p>Why don’t we build more colleges? We can spend billions on Iraq and Afghanistan, but how many new schools have been built in the last 10 years? I’m sure many students coming out of grad school would be happy to be college profs.</p>
<p>Colleges are a function of the State whereas the military is funded with Federal dollars. States have to balance their budgets while the Feds can borrow and print indefinitely. At the State level, you have competing interests for funds. K-12 education spending will have far more supporters because it affects far more people. The State trend is to reduce higher education funding; not increase it.</p>
<p>An easier approach to building is to buy private schools that aren’t doing well.</p>
<p>Because what is happening is not permanent. You have an influx of children a small echo-boom that is already starting to receed. You have population shifts across the country so while some universities might be at capacity others are not. You have an influx of dislocated workers that are returning for further education. Simultaneously you have universities that have severe budget crunches that they are trying to manage through resulting in decreased hiring, deferral of building and all those short term financial moves to stabilize budgets.</p>
<p>One approach may be to provide federal funding to offset the cost of attending OOS schools that are not at capacity. Sounds cheaper than building new schools.</p>
<p>This article is from the on-line version of the Kansas City Star, a Missouri newspaper. Absolutely nothing in the boxed quote is true about higher education in MO. The only public university that might be considering limiting enrollment is Mizzou, and that is because they are out of dorm space, and have housed some freshmen in apartment complexes the last couple of years. If (and it is a big IF) enrollment is limited, the only people shut out of the flagship campus would be those who do not meet already very minimal academic qualifications. There are many other public universities in MO, including three other Univ. of MO campuses (St. Louis, KC and Rolla), along with quite a few State University campuses around the state, a well-regarded public LAC, and numerous community colleges which are free to many students–none of them are over-enrolled and many are begging for students.</p>
<p>The phenomenon discussed in the article may be true in some places, but CA is not the same as the USA.</p>
<p>Community College costs are pretty low, even for out-of-state students (my experience
anyways). I think that we pay an extra $10 or $15 per credit to use an OOS school - we
use the OOS school because the ones in-state lack the level of quality that we want.</p>
<p>Commercial real estate is pretty cheap right now and I expect that it will get a lot
cheaper this year. The problem is on state budgets for all of the other costs of CC.</p>
<p>^^^OK, I failed to read carefully enough to note it was an AP story–which should be obvious, in retrospect. Nonetheless, I don’t believe the “getting shut out of college” and ‘having to resort to private schools’ phenomenon is true in most places.</p>
<p>It’s happening in community colleges in my state and where our daughter attends in MA. At the CC level, though, many of the students there wouldn’t be able to afford private schools so they’re essentially locked out. The solution is to sign up early as there are always many that wait until the last minute.</p>