As students prepare for another semester, the individuals at the other end of State Street are working yet again to determine exactly how valuable our education is and what the state should do about it.
Under the leadership of Gov. Scott Walker, and with the help of Rep. Steve Nass, R-Whitewater, the new chair of the Assembly Committee on Colleges and Universities, we’ll likely see that funding once again fall drastically short of the ever-increasing cost of higher education.
And while the urgency of cutting costs and tightening belts is all too apparent, at least relatively-speaking, we don’t have it so bad. The issue at hand, though, is that, as states seek to achieve some degree of solvency in their budgets, whose expense does it come at?
Facing a $28 billion budget shortfall, new California governor Jerry Brown has proposed a $1.4 billion cut to the funding of public higher education. Though the figure itself may be frightening to some, perhaps a more telling reality for the state of public higher education in the state is this: For the first time in the University of California System’s history, student tuition revenue will exceed the state’s share of the operating budget.
The cuts themselves amount to $500 million from the California State and University of California systems, respectively, and a $400 million cut to California Community Colleges. All this comes after protests last March across that state in opposition to the rising costs of education. What comes of this proposal, should it go forward, could be much more widespread and severe.
Whatever your thoughts on outrage and activism may be, California’s higher education institutions have two real options: perform and instruct at considerably diminished levels, while at the same time likely raising tuition costs and increasing class sizes, or to seek opportunities for privatization of funding streams, something our own university will very likely become more familiar with in coming years.
Figures provided by UC put the state funding at 1998 levels, when the system educated 73,600 fewer students than the 235,000 it educates today. The state’s community colleges will see per credit fees increase by $10 to $36, a figure around $100 lower than many Wisconsin technical colleges. Still, Community Colleges Chancellor Jack Scott claims the cuts will force up to 350,000 students to be turned away the following year.
Brown’s budget plan is undeniably harsh, and, given their financial troubles, it has to be. But when taking into account the sheer number of students educated in California each year and acknowledging what a powerful economic engine the higher education system plays in the state, the three systems graduating 272,000 and educating 3.5 million students annually, even tough times are not the right times to lessen investment in turning out educated and competitive citizens.
UC and CSU will likely weather these cuts without major shakeups in faculty, enrollment or tuition levels. But there are far too many risks associated with cuts to education, beyond retention and graduation levels, to the inability of many low-income and middle class young people to be able to readily afford an education. Far too many will be denied the ability to enter higher education institutions, whether due to costs or the universities meeting lowered enrollment numbers.
California cannot afford to face a deficit of the size they do today. But the answer to this problem is not to discourage would-be students or otherwise inhibit the paths to higher education.
Jake Begun ([email protected]) is a junior majoring in journalism.
