I was on the campus of Glendale Community College (CA) today - I’ll explain more about that in detail in a future entry - and I promised some reps from the ASGCC that I would communicate this message about their tuition. You can follow up on this at a Facebook page that they have created to broach the topic.

The ASGCC is taking a proactive stance in the advocacy of the proposed tax extensions in the upcoming mid-year elections in June 2011. The members of the Legislature will be voting on these tax extensions on March 10, 2011, which means that we have a very limited amount of time to act. If the tax extensions are NOT approved, GCC will be taking a 14 million dollar cut which will lead the administration, faculty, staff, and ESPECIALLY students to suffer greatly. 

These tax extensions call for the taxes on the property, sales, and income tax to stand at what they currently are. 

NOTE: They are NOT being increased. 

The ASGCC asks that you please take only a few minutes of your valuable time in writing a HANDWRITTEN (preferably so that it is personal) letter to your district representative (can be found at: leginfo.ca.gov) expressing your concerns and how NOT PASSING THESE TAX EXTENSIONS will affect YOU:

You can mention the following points and/or include a personal story of your own:

• It will take you 50% longer to transfer/graduate. If the average student takes 4 years to get a Bachelor’s degree, it will take you around 6 years.

• Both Summer and Winter sessions will be cut and this will certainly interfere with your plans of transferring/graduating. 

• There will be an enormous reduction of classes in the Fall and Spring sessions which means that registering as a full-time student will be highly unlikely. 

• Students that receive financial aid may be dropped from the program because they will not be able to maintain the necessary units to receive funding from the state.

• Students in the GAIN program might not receive welfare and might be dropped from their medical benefits. 

• Paying $36-$66 per unit will financially burden a great number of students.

• Programs such as Counseling, Transfer Center, PACE, Learning Center, CSI, SOS, EOPS, Math Discovery Center, Child Development Center, Student-workers, SI (Supplemental Instructions), Baja Program, Study Abroad, Athletics, among many others will suffer a great reduction of funding, and thus will be able to serve fewer students – longer lines, and even more limited available hours.

Once you have written your letter (may be sealed), please bring it to the Student Center – NOTE: it should be addressed to the representative of your district - and turn it in to the student worker (located right by the entrance) as the ASGCC will be mailing the letters to the legislator of your district. If you are able to fax the letter yourself from your home/business/work fax machine, please do so. 

Please invite ALL your friends to this event and make sure that they, too, write letters to their representatives because this can only be successful if we join our strengths and efforts. Remember that indifference and apathy can only create an artificial peace and cannot ever take us in the direction of our goals.