The Pissed Off Professor

Like many Californians, I’ve been keeping my eye on the budget standoff—not because it’s a new phenomenon: it happens just about every year—but because of the impact it will have on my upcoming classes.

While sums of money too large to comprehend are spent on political campaigns and blowing people up, and those who refuse to solve the budget problem continue to get paid ridiculous salaries, students who have qualified for a variety of education-based assistance haven’t received their money.

This creates a significant problem for instructors: trying to teach classes with students who may or may not be able to afford their books and supplies. There’s no way to tell who’s telling the truth and who’s lying when it comes to situations like this—well, other than the fact that those who really haven’t yet received their money are far less likely to make this fact known than those who are simply using the unresolved budget as an excuse not to spend their money the way their parents intended and/or they way they should.

And let me tell you: having done this for a number of years, my classes will be filled with students who will claim not to be able to buy what they need because they haven’t received their checks.

The amount allotted to community college students is miniscule (approximately $1,500/year) compared to the amount allotted to students at other types of colleges ($6,000 and up/year), but the difference in these figures reflects the difference in cost to attend a community college versus that to attend other types of schools.

Here’s where it gets really neato: at the community college level, tuition for a year costs about $600, and that’s for a full-time student—a rarity in community college. That means of the $1,500 allotted for the year, only $600 of it is to cover tuition: the rest ($900) is for all that other stuff I mentioned above—you know, the stuff one needs to actually sit in a classroom and be productive.

Most schools have tuition waivers in place to solve part of the problem; however, these waivers do not extend to parking passes, textbook purchases, or minimal school supply fees. This seems foolish to me: if you waive tuition fees for someone but do nothing to deal with what is needed in the classroom, what’s the point?

Here’s my guess: waiving tuition guarantees the school gets its money from the government, but the school does not profit from the other stuff, so the other stuff gets no consideration. Lovely.

• I can’t put my class on hold until the budget gets resolved and checks are received.
• I can’t purchase books and supplies for my students.
• I have made an extra copy of each of my textbooks available for short-term use at the library, but this is something I’ve always done.

Maybe instead of essays, I ought to have my students write nasty-grams to their illustrious California politicians: “leaders” whose college-student children are not wanting for anything, I’m certain.

Until then, I’ll get to listen to all of the excuses—the few that are real and the many that are not—and I’ll have no choice but to go on with the show.

Somehow, the state’s inability to do its work will trickle down to me and my obligation to teach at the pace required to complete the semester, and because I have no control over the situation, I’ll be branded insensitive, and unreasonable, and a variety of other pleasant things by some of my students—and most likely Celia and her colleagues who never have issues because they are so darn perfect—and all alone in my evil, black hole, I’ll just remain Pissed Off.

This entry was posted on Wednesday, August 22nd, 2007 at 11:01 am and is filed under College, Politics, Students, Teaching. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.