Document text
RCC pushes 5,000 photo by Steve Johnson Enrollment means more teachers needed By John Darling With a new building in Medford and enrollment pushing 5,000, Rogue Community College officials say they have enough space for their growing student body, but need more money to hire teachers to handle it all. The newly renovated building on Central Avenue, formerly the home of Montgomery Ward, opened with the start of classes Monday. The extra space provides 13 new classrooms, enough room for the 2,385 Jackson County students enrolled this fall � a 23.4 percent jump over last year, said RCC President Rick Levine. Enrollment on RCC�s Josephine County campus also is up from last year, by 14.6 percent. Total enrollment � 4,934 students � has increased by 17.6 percent. The increase in enrollment has not been matched by increases in state funding, however, Levine said. So RCC will ask the 2001 Legislature for an additional $87 million over the last biennium, he said. "We�ve talked with the governor and the Republicans (who control both houses of the Legislature), and they�ve asked us to develop cost data about how much it takes to educate a student here," Levine said. "We�re asking the state to pick up 49 percent of the budget, so that 51 percent will be local. This is so it won�t be state-controlled." RCC receives funds from property taxes and tuition and gets its state share through the Oregon Community College Workforce Development Agency. State funding is set by the Joint Ways and Means Committee, of which Sen. Lenn Hannon, R-Ashland, is the senior member. As long as state funding can keep up, RCC�s enrollment has a lot of room to grow, Levine said. The average enrollment at a community college is 11 percent of the population, which in Jackson County would be 17,000. Levine attributed the growing enrollment to excitement over the new building and the public�s increased understanding of the technical and college-transfer programs offered by RCC. "We�re filling a demand for education that hasn�t been here before, and now people are looking at RCC as the first option if they�re starting or returning to college," Levine said. "People are realizing they can take job-entry technical training or get their first two years of college out of the way much cheaper and transfer to any public university in Oregon to finish up." The college offers an associate of arts degree that allows students to enter as juniors at state universities. A large number of RCC students want to take a few classes while they continue working outside, he said. For the first time, RCC has enough demand for classes to offer all the basic courses in the evening as well as during the day. While the average age of RCC students has been about 32, these arrangements are attracting an "amazing number" of younger students, he added. The new 35,000-square-foot building at Eighth and Central brings to seven the number of buildings on the Riverside campus. The Ward�s building, as it is informally known, offers classrooms, tutoring center, faculty offices, student center and student services, such as counseling, financial aid and registration. Obituaries | Sports | Business | Classifieds | Tempo | Prime Times | So Oregon Sites | Outdoor Journal | Subscribe | Contact | Movies | Advertise | Real Estate Showcase | Archive | Editorials | Letters to the editor | Religion | Wake-up Call | NIE | Cyber Chef | Job Network | So Oregon Weather | WSJ Northwest | Forums | AP Wire | AP Money | F.A.Q. | Awards Ottaway Newspapers, Inc. The Community Newspaper Subsidiary of Dow Jones & Co, Inc Copyright �The Mail Tribune 2000, Medford, Oregon USA