1st Day of College Classes Draws Thousands to Area’s 3 Campuses : Education: Registration continues through Friday at the Ventura, Oxnard and Moorpark campuses. Officials countywide expect a slight decrease.

Bob Thomas was already starting his campaign for the Student Senate.

Blythe Waller was reading her sign-language textbook Monday afternoon, though her class at Ventura College does not start until Thursday. “I wanted to get a jump on things,” Waller said.

And Matt Jarvis was just waiting in line, hoping to sign up for a computer programming class in late registration at Moorpark College.

They joined thousands of students countywide for the first day of school in the three-campus Ventura Community College District.

Registration continues through Friday at Ventura, Oxnard and Moorpark colleges, and officials at all three campuses are hopeful that several hundred more students will enroll.

“We are up a little than this time last year,” Ventura College Vice President John Woolley said.

As of Monday, 9,030 students had enrolled in Ventura College--130 more than last year. Moorpark College counted 9,311 students, a decline of more than 500 over last fall’s total, said Floyd Thionnet, Moorpark vice president.

“I anticipate that the number will go up,” Thionnet said. “We do our preregistration and registration so early that I suspect students just have a hard time parting with all that money so soon, and they wait to enroll.”

Oxnard College, its registration computer down, could not provide an enrollment count. A year ago, the school had 4,825 students on its first day. “I think we’re going to be a little down from last year,” said Delores King, Oxnard College registrar.

Overall, district officials are expecting a slight decrease in enrollment from a year ago. In the past three years, enrollment has dropped more than 10%.

“It has been a real problem for us,” Jeff Marsee, a district vice chancellor, said. He said if enrollment continues to decline, the district stands to lose as much as $2.1 million in state funding over the next three years.

But Marsee said there are some signs that the enrollment trend can be turned around in the next year.

Starting with the spring semester, students with a bachelor’s degree will no longer have to pay $50 a unit for a class, with the college graduates charged the same as their undergraduate counterparts: $13 a unit.

The fees were of particular concern for Vicki Vlad, 33, as she scanned her list of Moorpark College classes with her husband, Joe Iannolo, 37. Vlad, a homemaker and mother of 13- and 8-year-olds, had enrolled in two photography courses.

She said she had taken classes at the college several years before.

“It sure cost a lot less than it does now,” she said.

Blythe Waller, 18, a recent Royal High School graduate, is experiencing college for the first time at the Ventura campus.

“People are a lot nicer here. No one really cares what you do. There aren’t any cliques like there were in high school,” the Ventura resident said. “Plus, the teachers seem smarter.”

Tired of her high school Spanish classes, she enrolled in sign language. She hopes to follow in her father’s footsteps and become a firefighter.

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Across campus on the quad, Bob Thomas readied the campaign flyers he plans to distribute in his bid to get elected to the Student Senate at Ventura College.

“We’ve got a lot of issues that need to be addressed,” he said. Chief among them, he said, are finding a replacement for retired college President Jesus Carreon and district Chancellor Thomas Lakin, who died last year.

At Moorpark College, Matt Jarvis’ chief goal Monday was to pay for his computer programming class. But he was caught in the usual long lines at the campus business office.

“I don’t know if I can wait any longer,” Jarvis, 27, said. “I have to get to work pretty soon.”

Next door, a long line snaked through the campus bookstore, crowding students against shelves as the registers whirred.

Her two bags filled with science books, Mona Dallal, 21, said it was not as expensive as it could have been.

“That’s why I came to school here--it’s cheaper,” Dallal said.

Already a student at Cal State Northridge studying political science, Dallal decided to enroll at Moorpark College to take basic science courses.

“I can’t decide if I want to go to law school or to med school,” she said. “Maybe I’ll do both.”