Educators have the wrong number in answering budget crisis
Koester said CSUN has 3,000 more low-income students than all the Ivy League schools combined. She cited a study suggesting that for every dollar the state invests in the Cal State system, $4.50 is returned to local economies because of salaries paid to the workforce. She said that 80% of the system’s graduates go on to grad school or work in California, entering fields such as nursing, teaching, engineering and healthcare. So the question is whether, in slashing the budgets of the Cal State and University of California campuses, the state is saving money or shooting itself in the foot. "There’s this aura in California where we think we’re better than everybody else," said Cal State Long Beach President F. King Alexander. "But this state needs to look in the mirror when our funding per student is less than it is in Arkansas, Kentucky and Mississippi."
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by Steve Lopez, The Los Angeles Times.