As the new school semester began, students looked forward to getting the classes they needed to transfer to a four-year university. Unfortunately, it appeared that many major and general education classes had to be cancelled this semester, which a lot of students weren’t too pleased about.

How are students supposed to get their degrees and move on to a university when community colleges can’t even offer the classes they need? It may be a sticky situation, but at the end of the day, there’s nothing the schools can do without funding.

If classes weren’t being met with the quota to fill the class, then why should the school still have these classes available? They will be losing money to have these classes and having to pay the teachers. Unless the school wants to start cutting extracurricular activities like sports, dance, and/or art classes, the school doesn’t seem to have a lot of options.

According to a research done in 2013 by the Public Policy Institute of California, titled “The Impact of Budget Cuts on California’s Community Colleges,” there have been more than $1.5 billion cuts from community schools for the past few years: “Proposition 30 (passed by voters in November 2012) partially reversed the trend, leading to $210 million in additional funding for 2012-2013.”

The right steps are being taken in order to help increase funding for schools but unfortunately it’s not enough. Student fees have almost doubled but it hasn’t been enough with the state’s defunding.

With not enough funding, plenty of schools have had to cut both classes and instructors. These limitations on courses and teachers, has in turn led to an enrollment decline. The concern here shouldn’t be if classes should have to be cut due to low enrollment, it’s a necessity in order for the school to float above waters.

We should be concerned with how the government values the importance of education. Students are having more difficulty in getting the classes they need, which raises concern about what research calls “the ability of our public higher education system to produce the number of skilled workers demanded by California’s economy.”

Although I totally agree that the government doesn’t really care about America’s access to education, the blame ultimately falls on the students for not being so productive and signing up for classes. San Diego City College has one of the lower enrollments in the San Diego Community College District — which includes Mesa College and Miramar College. But why is that? There’s no point in having access to many classes if no one is going to sign up for them.

The schools are just like a business; it’s about supply and demand. If the demand of classes decreases because of low enrollment, then the school shouldn’t have to supply those classes.