Tough economic times mean more people are looking to community colleges to help train them for the work force.
Brice Harris, chancellor of the Los Rios Community College District, said the district has seen 40 percent more people signing up to earn certificates in the past two years.
"More want access to the world of work," he said.
Students are demanding more job training at large community colleges and on small satellite campuses in rural communities.
"I think it's a fair statement that we're seeing more students looking for job training," said Kurt Heisinger, dean at the Tahoe-Truckee campus of Sierra College. "When the economy starts to go south, students come out and retool and retrain … to get into the work force."
The Mountain Mechatronics program is popular at the 600-student Truckee campus. Unique to the center, it offers the technical training needed to work in the ski, golf, hospitality and public utility industries.
The program's coordinator, Marshall Lewis, once the general manager of a ski resort, says that training local residents for local jobs is important.
"… To try to import technical workers from down below doesn't work out very well," Lewis said.
He said most of the imported workers stay for about three years before discovering that the cost of living and brutal winters are not to their liking.
"It's hard living," he said. "Our best bet is to grow our own."
They try to grow their own at Folsom Lake College's El Dorado Center as well. The rural center in Placerville offers its 2,700 students access to certificate programs in fire technology, water and wastewater management and emergency medical technician training, among other things.
The water and wastewater management certificates will meet the employment needs of the county's water districts, said Dale van Dam, dean of the El Dorado Center.
He said the courses are being taught in partnership with the El Dorado Irrigation District, the county's largest water district.
Van Dam says there are a number of reasons a campus might offer a specific career tech course. Members of the public may lobby for a course or administrators may add the course after looking at community-needs research or labor market data.
Folsom Lake College is considering certificate programs in nutrition and fitness for the aging, phlebotomy, nanofabrications and purchasing management for future semesters.
El Dorado County community members have recently requested course work in equine science, agritourism, small-scale alternative energy systems, viticulture and sustainability.
"We try to be as responsive as possible to the public," van Dam said.
Harris said the demand for job training is accentuated at the district's centers in Rancho Cordova, Placerville and West Sacramento.
"Those areas are more challenged from an economic point of view," Harris said.
At the district's Folsom Lake College, accredited in 2004, there is a concerted effort to develop career tech programs, van Dam said.
"They are working to respond as quickly as they can," Harris said.
The state's community colleges are awaiting the Legislature's response to a proposal from Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger to cut $332.2 million from their budgets. The Legislative Analyst's Office also has recommended that tuition be increased at community colleges by $6 per unit in January and an additional $4 next school year.
While vocational classes can be more expensive than desk and chalkboard classes, Harris said, cuts in the Los Rios district won't target any specific type of class.
"We're really worried," said Cherish Vaught, one of a number of Sacramento City College cosmetology students protesting the community college cuts at a press conference last week.
She fears her student aid will be cut next.
Diane Woodruff, interim chancellor of California Community Colleges, told the crowd that day that cuts would keep students from completing training that would allow them to increase their incomes and pay additional taxes.
"It's a double whammy," van Dam said this week. "Every time there's an economic reversal, people are looking for an opportunity to enhance or upgrade skills and they look to community colleges."
Call The Bee's Diana Lambert, (916) 478-2672.
