Financial Problems at San Francisco City College

http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2009/08/29/BAA119F7LO.DTL&tsp=1

This article in the San Francisco Chronicle today speaks to the financial problems some of California’s junior colleges are experiencing. These schools have been a very cheap way to get the first two years of one’s college because they have been heavily subsidized.

But when things get subsidized to this degree you have distortions. For one they have been offering high school math classes like elementary algebra and offering college credit. Maybe folks should get their high school math in high school.

And because it was so inexpensive, the demand for the classes has been higher than it would otherwise be. It points out that Mary Allen, 76, has taken classes at the City College for the last quarter century. Nice for Mary but how about the taxpayers that are footing the bill for her classes in Psychology, Sociology and Art Appreciation (I really don’t know what classes she took).