(1%.V ic-77 No. WILLIAM P. CLEMENTS, JR. GOVERNOR MEMORANDUM TO: Wil 4 OFFICE OF THE GOVERNOR . Clements, Jr. FROM: . Miller SUBJECT: Public Community/Junior Colleges DATE: October 20, 1982 Your support for our public community/junior colleges has been well demon- strated by the increased appropriations for them since you took office. State aid to public community/junior colleges in the 1978-79 biennium was $426 million. For the 1982-83 biennium, a total of $700 million was appro- priated; a dollar increase of $274 million; a percentage increase of 64 percent. Approximately half of the 350,000 headcount students at public community/ junior colleges, about 175,000, are enrolled in vocational-technical pro- grams. And, about half of the $700 million, about $350 million, appropri- ated is for vocational-technical educations. You have also publicly supported these institutions in speeches during the past four years. However, we have recently had a number of calls from public community/junior college people expressing concern about the lack of recent public support by you for them. The callers have pointed out that you have publicly supported TSTI, which trains about 8,000 students per year, while there has not been such support by the 47 public community/ junior college districts which train 175,000 students per year in vocational-technical programs. I recommend you reiterate your strong support for our public community/ junior college system in Texas, recognizing again their valuable contribu- tion both in terms of providing ready access to all Texans to post- secondary educational opportunities and in terms of providing quality vocational-technical training for jobs needed by private industry. You may wish to point out that the 47 community college districts should play a major role in carrying out the purposes of the Jobs Training Partnership Act recently signed by the President. gg SAM HOUSTON BUILDING • P. O. BOX 13561 • AUSTIN, TEXAS 78711