California Community Colleges Ration Their Offerings

Now in his third year at Yuba College, a year he once hoped to spend in Chico or Davis, Robert Bond said every student he knows has struggled to get the classes they need.

"My first semester here, no math classes were open, so I couldn't get a math class," Bond, 20, lamented on the Yuba campus quad, decked in a sweat shirt and shorts on an unseasonably warm afternoon. "Basically it took me two years until I could get a math class, college-level Math 52. So I'm like way behind."

Faced with state budget cuts since the recession -- annual funding is now 12 percent below its 2008-09 high-water mark -- community colleges have pared back course offerings. Yet demand remains sky high as costs at four-year universities shoot upward and unemployed Californians seek retraining.

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