The state that brought the world microprocessors, cell phones, computers and the Internet is in the process of gutting its system of public higher education in the name of "restructuring." In effect, they’re killing the goose that lays the golden eggs. Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger and the Republicans in the Legislature who control California’s finances have apparently concluded it is not even worth trying to compete with India and China anymore. California’s leaders, by abandoning the CSU, are throwing in the towel. They’ve given up. One would think even Republicans such as Senate Minority Leader Dennis Hollingsworth and Sen. Dave Cogdill would care about maintaining America’s competitive edge against its commercial rivals. Yet they are pursuing an irresponsible and cynical restructuring of the CSU that is terrible for California’s future and bad for the United States’ position in the world economy.
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by Joseph A. Palermo, The Sacramento Bee.
Posted: December 6th, 2009, by: admin. Categories: . Awaiting Comments.
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.
Posted: December 6th, 2009, by: admin. Categories: . Awaiting Comments.
Replacing Yudof’s blunt furloughs with payroll reductions on the top 2 percent of UC’s payroll — roughly 3,600 individuals who earn more than $200,000 annually — would free more than $220 million for critical needs. That’s enough to rollback almost half of the 32 percent fee increase adopted last week while protecting the most vulnerable employees. By refusing to cut back on low-priority spending including executive mansions, rentals of non-UC property, noncrucial travel, and consultants’ contracts, Yudof’s administration has denied students access to classes and potentially turned janitors and hospital workers out of their homes.
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by Lakesha Harrison, The Contra Costa Times.
Posted: December 5th, 2009, by: admin. Categories: . Awaiting Comments.
Of all the damage that has been done in recent years by Sacramento’s habitual flight from fiscal responsibility — particularly during the disastrous Schwarzenegger years — none has been more injurious or perverse than the budgetary mistreatment of the state’s universities and community colleges. Starved for adequate funds, what was once California’s greatest guarantor of social mobility based on merit has become, in fact, a force for the growing inequality that threatens this state’s future. Today, just 36.3% of California’s high school graduates go on to college, compared with better than 40% nationally. Among the country’s 20 largest states, we now rank 18th in the percentage of 12th graders who go directly to college and 17th in the number who ever seek higher education.
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by Tim Rutten, The Los Angeles Times.
Posted: December 5th, 2009, by: admin. Categories: . Awaiting Comments.
States will need to start setting aside money during good times for the inevitable rainy day. And they’ll need to make higher education a bigger priority. Over the last 30 years, about the only thing in California that has grown as fast as college tuition is spending on the state’s vast network of new prisons. At the same time, it has let the best public university system in the world crumble. Colleges and universities will need to join the rest of society in the 21st century in utilizing advances in information technology. The alternative is unacceptable: that lower public investment, higher costs, and skyrocketing tuitions will turn public universities from engines of social mobility into enclaves of privilege. That’s the possibility students in California are fighting against. Everyone who believes in the promise of public education should be on their side.
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by Kevin Carey, Newsweek.
Posted: December 4th, 2009, by: admin. Categories: . Awaiting Comments.
In response to criticism over his handling of the financial crisis, Chancellor Henry T. Yang held the first of three town hall meetings Monday to address students’ questions and concerns… The forum began when a student spoke out against California’s legislators and challenged UCSB’s leadership to host a sit-in at the governor’s office. Yang said he has made plans to travel to the capital in order to convey the message of students against the 32 percent tuition increase and cuts to the state legislature and UC leaders. However, he said, he will do so in the manner that he feels will be most effective.
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by Jordanne Pascual, The Santa Barbara Daily Nexus.
Posted: December 3rd, 2009, by: admin. Categories: . Awaiting Comments.
In Sacramento, there are two big interest groups: the California Correctional Peace Officers Association and California Teachers Association. One advocates for the ever-growing California Department of Corrections; the other for increased entitlements to K-12 education. Both of these powerful interests have something we don’t: lobbyists in Sacramento who kick and scream to fight for their clients, infiltrate the capital and ensure a share of the state’s expenditures. It might sound a little scary — lobbying is a pretty taboo word these days — but in a democracy, interest groups move opinions and, more importantly, they move money. Lobbying is not just hiring a fat cat lawyer to wine and dine legislators. It’s talking to your state senator or assembly member and letting them know how student fees and budget cuts are eroding our education. Our state legislators control how much money the UC will receive, yet most of us could not name either of our district’s representatives.
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by Ben Gevercer, City on a Hill Press.
Posted: December 3rd, 2009, by: admin. Categories: . Awaiting Comments.
"All right students, we are here to send a message to the governor and state legislature that we are no longer going to sit down while we continue to get our classes cut, and while our fees continue to go up." University instructors joined the student demonstrators. Rita Ladesma is president of the Cal State L.A. Faculty Association. She says the governor should protect the state’s education budget from cuts even if it means raising taxes, which he has said he won’t do. "He said a lot of things," Ladesma says of the governor. "He also said he was the education governor. And under his watch he has presided over the systematic dismantling of public higher education. What a legacy. He is not running again. He has an opportunity to change that legacy."
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by Shirley Jahad, Southern California Public Radio.
Posted: December 3rd, 2009, by: admin. Categories: . Awaiting Comments.
Students at California public universities have been staging protests against budget cuts and fee hikes all fall, capturing local and national attention with administration building sit-ins, 24-hour library occupations and large outdoor rallies… Cain’s suggestion to Sanchez and other student activists: take aim at local and state governments, too. "You guys have to be part of the broader political context," he said. "You can’t simply be focused on the administrators, some of whom, I admit, haven’t made a strong enough case for public education, haven’t been out there. But you guys have to take the larger political context seriously because that’s what’s killing us in the long run." Sanchez defended how UC students have been protesting. "The targets need to be the UC administration, as well as the state legislature and the governor, most importantly for us," he said, arguing that years of mismanagement have gotten the system to where it is now.
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by Jennifer Epstein, Inside Higher Ed.
Posted: December 3rd, 2009, by: admin. Categories: . Awaiting Comments.
In the 2007-2008 academic year, California did something it had not done since the 1980s: sent more college students out of state than it received from elsewhere. For years, the Golden State’s public universities were a draw, offering a low-cost, high-quality education to its high school graduates and drawing talented people from other states and countries. With fees rising and student slots shrinking in the midst of the state budget crisis, some worry that a process that has helped boost California’s economy will reverse itself — and do so at a time when the state’s economy needs more educated workers than ever. "Absolutely the state is moving in the wrong direction in terms of closing the education skills gap," said Hans Johnson, a demographer with the Public Policy Institute of California.
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by Malcolm Maclachlan, Capitol Weekly.
Posted: December 3rd, 2009, by: admin. Categories: . Awaiting Comments.
