…In the past 10 years state financial support has decreased by $600 million, or 29 percent, while enrollment has risen by 100,000, or 28 percent… "The Master Plan found that higher education was the way for California to invent and reinvent itself," Zingg said. "The farther and farther we move away from it, the more our chances for recovery and prosperity are jeopardized." To Zingg, this reduction in the state’s investment in higher education, which began even before the current recession, is "frustrating and disheartening and leaves a lot of bad feelings." It pains him that California spends as much each year — more than $10 billion — housing 170,000 prisoners as it does on higher education, which serves more than 3 million full- and part-time students, including 440,000 in the CSU alone. Sooner or later, he continued, "we have got to accomplish, in Sacramento and among a broad spectrum of movers and shakers, a reimagination and reaspiration of the Master Plan to make it work again."

Read full article [here].
by Robert Speer, The Chico News and Review.

Posted: August 20th, 2009, by: admin. Categories: . Awaiting Comments.