Highline Community College will be closing its Federal Way campus this August due to Governor Gregoire's budget cuts.
The campus hosts Highline's Center for Extended Learning and the Puget Sound Early College. CEL is mostly personal enrichment or certificate programs such as ESL and GED preparation. PSEC is a program similar to running start with an emphasis on student support.
All 77 students enrolled in PSEC will be able to finish out this year, and over 600 students enrolled in CEL programs will finish before the closing date.
Highline is talking to city leaders to find a rent-free site to continue both programs, but the school has found nothing as of yet.
The college will save almost $400,000 a year between utilities and rent, and the site's lease will be up this October.
In an interview with the Tacoma News Tribune, Lisa Skari, VP of Institutional Advancement at Highline, said that the school budget will not be finalized until April but, "There's no indication this number is going to get any better."
Kathy Brisebois, 37, is currently in a displaced worker retraining program at Highline and she is concerned about the changes she'll have to make next fall.
"It'll be harder to get my daughter to school if I have to go all the way to Des Moines. I like the convenience of the Federal Way campus, and it will cost me more in gas, but I understand why they have to close it," she said.
Some of the CEL programs are offered at other institutions, and this closing will not affect the main campus course offerings, but the convenience for local residents will be lost in the traffic getting to Des Moines every day and some may choose not to bother to commute at all.
The rise in community college admissions has gone up as unemployment rates rise, but with Highline's $2.1 million budget cuts, costs are being cut across the board. Losing the extended learning and special programs like PSEC are merely a stepping stone, and the future of higher education in Washington State is looking rather grim in the Puget Sound.
Students at Green River seem slightly concerned about the closure, and how it will affect our own campus. Their biggest concern is that the students who would have gone to Highline's Federal Way campus will come here instead, mostly because we are the closest college to Federal Way aside from the main Highline branch in Des Moines.
Heather Hubbard said, "I'm kind of worried about it myself, because I'm planning to transfer next year and I'm already having problems with that. There's going to be an overpopulation of students… Green River seems to be more of a central college, so I'm not too worried that they'll close the campus here, but it's in the back of my mind."
Jamie Aguilar, 25, a para-education student, said, "That's crazy, I actually went there. It means there's going to be a lot more people here struggling for classes, its definitely going to affect us. "
Jamie was also worried about the Project Teach program at Enumclaw, and how that may be affected by this latest slash in higher education spending.
When John Ramsey, Director of Public Information at GRCC was asked whether Green River will be impacted by this closure, he said, "Well, we could. They served a cohort population…We could get some of those students coming down here; it would have to depend on whether it's convenient. I think it's too early to tell what effect that will have on Green River."
Students can rest at ease as Ramsey also said there is no campus closure in our school's future, but, "Students should be concerned about what's happening to their local college and also to the colleges they would like to transfer to after they finish at Green River."
If students would like to do something about the budget crisis, Ramsay had a suggestion, "Students can advocate with their local legislatures."
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