If closed, the nascent campus would be shuttered after only four semesters.
No final decision has been made, but college officials say they will be hard-pressed not to reduce the class offerings at the Coastside branch.
 Astronomy instructor Diana Challis' class is one of 60 in danger as the College of San Mateo Coastside considers wholesale changes after the spring semester. |
Located at the Shoreline Station in Half Moon Bay, the Coastside branch of the junior college has been open little more than a year. Since its start on the coast, the College of San Mateo and its parent district, the San Mateo County Community College District, have suffered financial setbacks, including a $25 million loss from the collapse of Lehman Brothers investment house and a 10 percent cut in this year’s state budget.
Claire said those hits mean the community college district would have to search for all possible cuts as it determines its budget for the 2010-2011 fiscal year. The final decision on those reductions falls to the board of trustees, which is expected to decide on during its January meeting.
Martha Tillman, dean for the Coastside branch, painted a more pessimistic picture. The closure of the Shoreline Station campus is a near certainty, she said.
“There’s a thread of hope, but realistically … I don’t see how we could stay afloat given the severity of the cuts,” she said. “Some programs and courses might be able to continue in another facility, but it won’t be the widespread offerings that we had at the CSM Coastside.”
The Coastside’s only junior college offers approximately 60 classes each semester, including courses in sciences, arts, and vital language programs for non-native English speakers. Losing its established campus could mean some college classes could be relocated to other facilities such as those owned by the Cabrillo Unified School District.
But Tillman estimated a closure would leave about “five or six” classes available on the Coastside.
The goal to have a community college on the Coastside stretches back to the 1960s, when the college district purchased more than 180 acres of property for a campus about two miles south of Half Moon Bay. At the time, officials were projecting strong growth along the Coastside, and a community college seemed like an inevitable necessity. But those plans didn’t come to fruition, primarily because coastal growth was quickly outpaced by exploding development on the other side of the hill.
Despite having no local college, Coastsiders strongly supported bolstering education facilities, and a majority of local voters supported numerous bond measures in recent years for the college district. Noticing the consistent Coastside political support, district officials decided in 2006 to establish a Coastside campus, which is now midway through its third semester.
Tillman, who has managed the campus since its start, says she expects to be working over the coming months to plan out what, if any, classes can remain.
“I point my finger at the state for this,” she said. “This is the direct result of the state dismantling of education.”
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