SUISUN VALLEY — Despite rough times, Solano Community College continues to be the county’s best bargain for a post-secondary education for the approximately 11,000 students who take courses there — some to train for a career, others to finish two years before transferring to a four-year college.
The community college was established in Vallejo in 1945 as Vallejo Junior College. It was part of the Vallejo City School District until 1967. Its 192-acre central campus on Suisun Valley Road was completed in 1971 and opened with 5,000 students.
It has since added satellite campuses at its 10-acre site in Vallejo, its 60-acre site in Vacaville and at the University Center on Travis Air Force Base.
Its student population is diverse and comes from every community in the county to attend courses offered every spring and fall semester. Flexible scheduling includes day, evening and Saturday classes held on campus and off, and offered via the Internet, television and home study.
In addition to its core academic classes, SCC offers a nursing program, a cosmetology program and an aeronautics program. It offers 91 associate degrees and 40 certificates of achievement.
Three-fourths of the students are part-time, taking one to two classes a term. They are also evenly divided between daytime and evening classes.
Earlier this year, SCC was forced to cut its football and aquatics program. It was part of a cost-cutting campaign to fill a $4.8 million budget deficit that also included the elimination of the school’s summer academic session and its contract with the Solano College Theatre Association.
Much of the future of SCC now depends on whether the state sales tax increase put on the November ballot by state Gov. Jerry Brown passes. If not, SCC and the state’s other community colleges face another round of cuts.
Reach Ian Thompson at 427-6976 or [email protected]. Follow him on Twitter at www.twitter.com/ithompsondr.
Since SCC has reduced its student load by 1800 students over the last three years and is losing more and more of its students to Internet Instruction and seven other institutes of higher learning, has a $4.8 million budget deficit, and still is on the California Academic Warning List, it badly needs to contract in size, not expand. Eliminating the satellite campuses would be a good start. And then there is the mother of all bonds, Measure Q, the $348 MILLION DOLLAR empire building program. That is right, Measure Q just builds buildings and an empire, without building programs that provide good jobs. Measure Q definitely needed to be voted down in November. Also, wouldn’t it be much cheaper to be open only during the day or only during the evening, instead of both? As it is doubtful that Governor Moonbeam is going to get his tax increases, SCC had better start making a lot more cuts!
Good points Mr. Guynn. Who would issue this Bond and what about the resulting interest payments and overall DEBT LOAD to the tax paying public? Why is so much money necessary? We need to rethink this…………..You can not give away the goodies and not pay for them. Tax and spend or Borrow and pay interest and spend both are bad. There should be complete financial transparency concerning all government and tax payer supported institutions.
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