“I have had several low-paying retail jobs,” Bree said, “but when the economy started tanking, and my husband lost his job, I decided I needed to go back to school.”

Bree teaches music to first- and second-graders at a Walnut Creek elementary school and needs to finish her GE classes and transfer to CSU East Bay to teach music at higher levels.

“The economy really scares me now,” she said.Counselor Lupe Daniels says the counseling department is seeing more students like Bree, “…who have left work and are looking to retool themselves with skills that can be used professionally.”

The economic crisis – with its increased cost of living, layoffs and home foreclosures – is affecting DVC students off all ages and backgrounds.

“I believe there will be more students who are going to be applying for financial aid next year due to the economic conditions and job losses,” said David Reyes, a DVC financial aid assistant.

Not only are students seeking more financial assistance, but it appears the college is fast becoming a place of limbo for transfer students, who are finding it harder and harder to move on from DVC.

“Universities are admitting fewer transfer students, and they are not extending application deadlines,” said Catherine Franco, DVC’s transfer center coordinator. “Last year the colleges were accepting winter applications up until December for classes that started in January.”

It may be the international students, though, who are being hit the hardest by the finical downturn.

Sally Conover, DVC’s director of international education, says she is expecting a decline in international student applications for spring 2009, based on the ripple effect the U.S. economy has had on foreign currencies.

“Especially [for] the Korean students there’s a lot of concern,” Conover said. “The Korean won has fallen pretty steep and pretty fast.”

Conover said many current Korean students are worried they’ll have to go back home soon as it becomes too expensive to continue their studies here.

Soo Choi, an international student from Korea, said he came to DVC to further his education, but it is becoming hard to afford in the face of the economic downturn.

“If I would have known before, I may have reconsidered,” Choi said. “I can’t afford to do much now that I am here.”

Choi said he had planned to apply to UC Berkeley, but will now apply to a CSU, because of the cost.

International students pay $250 a unit, which adds up to well over $2,000 a semester with books.

“You have to be a full-time student and can only work on campus,” Choi said. “This makes it very hard to make much money and have any left over for expenses outside of school.”

(Journalism 120 students contributed to this story.)