By Mitra Moassessi     

Productivity generally measures output of some process.  In the field of education, productivity measures the number of students served by a group of employees. It can also measure the cost of a group of employees to the number of students served.  In California the major part of funding for community colleges comes from the state in the form of funding per FTES (Full Time Equivalent Students), therefore as the number of students served per faculty increases, the revenue generated per faculty goes up.   Using the available data from Chancellor’s Office web site http://www.cccco.edu/divisions/tris/mis/reports.htm, I compared SMC to other California Community Colleges that generated 15,000 or more FTES, and to five districts with more than one college which district wide generated FTES similar to SMC.      For 2002-2003 of the 115 reported colleges 20 colleges generated 15,000 or more credit FTES each. SMC was on those colleges, and generated the highest number of credit FTES: 35,360.47.  

      For 2003-2004 of the 115 colleges 19 colleges generated 15,000 or more credit FTES each. SMC was one of those colleges, and generated the highest number of credit FTES:  30,073.58.  (See the table below showing the 2003-2004 study.)      Among colleges that generated 15,000 or more credit FTES for both 2002-03 and 2003-04, SMC had the second highest ratio of students served per faculty.  The FTES (full time equivalent students) / FTE (full time equivalent faculty) was 50.7 for 2002-2003 and 54.9 for 2003-2004.      Among colleges that generated 15,000 or more FTES for 2002-2003, SMC had the third lowest ratio of faculty salaries per students served($1589.40) and  had the second lowest ($1524.52) for 2003-2004.      In short, the faculty at SMC are teaching many more students per class than community colleges of comparable size, generating the highest number of credit FTES in the state.  On the other hand, SMC faculty has one of the lowest salaries per student ratio for their efforts.