Enrollment caps considered

When the College of Southern Nevada on Monday morning opened registration for a new slate of classes scheduled for midnight, the response was swift and overwhelming.

Within an hour, biology 189 was full. By midafternoon, two other classes were half full.

The enormous demand for midnight classes offered to help ease overcrowding at CSN during a budget crisis shows the need for innovation in tough economic times, college officials say.

Because of the state's budget crisis, there isn't enough money to build new buildings or hire more teachers despite increased enrollment in recent years and signs that demand will continue to climb as long as the economy lags.

All of which has prompted the state's higher education chancellor, Dan Klaich, to pitch an idea that would have gotten him laughed out of town a decade or two ago: enrollment caps at Nevada's four community colleges.

"We are trying to serve more people on fewer dollars," Klaich said.

At this week's meeting of the higher education system's Board of Regents, Klaich will float the idea of limiting enrollment. The response probably won't be as harsh as it once might have been.

"Our traditional mission is one that, frankly, the state is having trouble filling," said Michael Richards, CSN's president.

He said the college already has de facto enrollment caps because classes are at capacity. CSN turned away more than 5,000 students this semester because the classes they wanted were full.

That flies in the face of a community college's traditional mission, which calls for allowing anyone who wants an education to sign up for one. But it is a sign of the times.

Klaich thinks that capping enrollment might produce results.

"I think you have to consider everything in the circumstances we find ourselves in," said James Dean Leavitt, chairman of the Board of Regents.

CSN's enrollment topped 43,000 this semester, making it the largest higher education institution in the state. Because tax revenues have dropped sharply, the state-supported part of Nevada's higher education budget has been cut by 12 percent for the next two years.

CSN's faculty and students say they don't like the idea of capping enrollment. They also don't like the consequences of not capping it. Class sizes continue to increase, stretching the school's resources to the limits.

Mark Rauls, a philosophy professor and chairman of the faculty senate, said the debate is one that pits quality against access. Capping enrollment would limit student access to courses. Not capping enrollment could diminish quality as class sizes grow.

"We have students beating down the doors," he said.

That's true in subjects such as philosophy, but it's doubly true in math and sciences, Rauls added.

"We're really worried about what we can do," Rauls said. "But we're at the breaking point. Faculty are very mixed."

Anthropology professor Kevin Rafferty, who has been at CSN for more than 20 years, said he, too, is conflicted.

"We're as tight as we can get," Rafferty said. "It's a devil's bargain no matter what we do."

Student body President Nathaniel Waugh said he's worried about the access issue.

"I would hate to see the day in which we turn away students at a time when they need the services of the community colleges the most, especially with unemployment where it is," he wrote in an e-mail.

Contact reporter Richard Lake at rlake@reviewjournal.com or 702-383-0307.