Where did my classes go? With budget cuts forcing public colleges to drop classes and raise tuition, graduating isn't as easy as it used to be.

• Author: Winter, Greg
• Position: Education Times

The moment registration opens, Michele D. Hannah dives for courses with a fury produced by desperation. "When will I get the classes I need to graduate?" wonders Hannah, class of "I-have-no-idea," at the University of Iowa.

Classes have gotten so tight, or so scarce, that Hannah says she trolls the university's Web site every few hours for the stray course opening that might suddenly appear.

But it probably won't. At many public universities, grappling with record budget cuts and rising enrollments, the classroom is no longer being spared. After whittling away at staff, coaxing professors to juggle more classes, cutting sports teams, and neglecting roof repairs, many public universities have begun chopping away at academics, making it harder for some students to graduate on time.

The University of Illinois has canceled 1,000 classes in hundreds of subjects this year. The University of Colorado has cut academic programs in journalism, business, and engineering. At California State University campuses, up to 30,000 students could be turned away this spring.

Virginia Tech is scrapping an education major and suspending mandatory history classes because it does not have enough professors. The University of Nebraska is canceling Portuguese, closing some research laboratories, shedding exercise science, and cutting back on Russian and museum studies.

"The academic cuts are probably the most severe I've seen," says Edward M. Elmendorf, senior vice president at the American Association of State Colleges and Universities in Washington. "And I don't see any mitigation in them in the coming year."

RESULTS MAY VARY

Universities have taken pains to trim in the least harmful ways, shearing courses or majors in hopes of leaving the academic core intact. Still, the budget cuts have taken a toll.

What all this means for students will vary from campus to campus, even from major to major. Yet one of the most common academic cuts has been a reduction in the number of course sections offered--that is, how many times a class is taught in a given semester or year. While the course may not be eliminated, it becomes less accessible, leading to what some worry is an inevitable consequence. "It will influence students' ability to graduate on time," says Larry D. Roper, vice provost for student affairs at Oregon State University.

This is especially true because so many students are working to pay for their educations, making their schedules tight. When classes are not...