Cosumnes River College programs are struggling to find different ways to support their students who are most in need due to the circumstances of this year's state budget not being passed yet.
Student Support Services homes many of these programs which have been struggling to get by with the funds they have left over from last year.
However, the Los Rios Community College District is one of the few districts able to help fund their community colleges still.
"We're very fortunate to have a wonderful district that is fronting us money but there are only so many funds to use," said Kathy Degn, head coordinator of Extended Opportunity Program and Services and Cooperative Agency Resources for Education.
Degn said at the beginning of each semester they're usually able to give out school supplies such as backpacks, binders and other supplies but that was unable to happen.
Issuance of book vouchers was reduced, many lost their private tutors and the lending library which allowed students to borrow books till the end of the semester is now limited only to students apart of EOP&S and CARE.
The rest of the funds cover time with counselors, free one-on-one tutoring, early registration, and to help pay for graduation and transfer services said Rose Williams, a full time employee at Student Support Services.
Williams also said they were serving 1,000 students last year but dropped 500 of them who were not qualified members of EOP&S or CARE in order to better serve students who are.
"Our job is to keep them stress free, to focus on school, not support them," Williams said.
Even with fewer students, employees' hours were cut and some had to be them let go affecting their Fridays leaving them with not enough workers to accommodate students.
Williams has to do the job of three people, therefore they had to enforce new guidelines to save time. One guideline Williams said was sometimes she will have open days to make appointments, but if other work needs to be done she has to send students away.
"We can't make exceptions, it throws off everything we've worked for," Williams said.
As for the other areas on campus being affected by the budget, Alice Kwong, head of the financial aid office said the Los Rios District will be able to advance the funds for Cal Grants, but since they are the last open door to students their application rate, which was 14,000 last year has gone up.
Without the new budget passed they don't know if they will have help to deal with the overflow of students.
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