Imagine ““ five years from now ““ a California budget that distributes more money to state prisons than it does to the University of California, California State University and community colleges combined.
This is a frightening and alarming prophecy that is not completely far-fetched, especially considering the path our state’s treasury is currently taking.
Earlier this month, California State Treasurer Bill Lockyer issued the 2007 Debt Affordability Report “Looking Beyond the Horizon: Investment Planning for the 21st Century,” which proposed to spend a mere $3.3 billion to operate the UC system.
Meanwhile, three times as much money from our budget is currently allocated to state prisons.
In fact, state lawmakers approved a $7.8 million building plan last April to house 53,000 more inmates but they have yet to discover an efficient solution to the continual budget reductions that are hurting state universities.
Personally, I’m not a huge fan of using our precious tax dollars to house, feed and clothe the dregs of society while the future doctors, engineers and ““ ironically ““ politicians of our nation are left out in the cold.
But this is nothing new considering the demise UC funding has undergone with budget deficits in recent years. These deficits have resulted in major cutbacks on UC spending, as well as tuition and fee increases for UC students across the board.
In 2004, California State University Chancellor Charles Reed and UC President Robert C. Dynes outlined a compromise with Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger.
The Higher Education Compact they formed requires state university systems to reduce spending by hundreds of millions of dollars, rely on private fundraising to finance essential university programs, and gradually increase student fees until 2011.
In return, Schwarzenegger agreed to halt further cutbacks on the university systems. Clearly, this deal has left UC students and faculty in the dust.
Presently, UCLA is struck by the impending doom of ever-growing educational charges.
Each entering class is faced with tuition and instructional fee hikes that are placing more financial responsibility in the hands of students.
This is especially distressing considering that the UC is considered a public higher-education gem throughout the nation, but it does not have the legal guarantee for state money that California K-12 schools have.
But as the fiscal hole continues to burn deeper into our state’s pocket, Lockyer has now introduced the idea of striking the already failing financial support of our precious public universities.
Although Lockyer defends that he merely proposed the idea of letting go of the UC system ““ in an attempt to save about $7 billion a year over the next 20 years ““ to draw attention to the budget discussion, the UC and CSU have already endured enough grief.
Currently, the state spends a feeble 3.2 percent of its budget on the UC, which is less than half of the 6.9 percent it provided in 1970.
In 1965, California tax dollars covered up to 94.4 percent of a UC student’s education, whereas the budget only covers about 58.5 percent today.
And state funding for the overall UC budget has gone down from 50 percent to 20 percent since 1985.
The scales are not balanced in terms of the university-funding black hole: Student fees are constantly rising, the state is continually putting the weight of UC financial responsibility into the hands of private funding and faculty salaries remain stagnant.
It’s understandable for Lockyer and the Schwarzenegger administration to want to find a rare and delicate compromise among the flurry of tax increases, budget cuts, and the ever-present and looming state deficit.
But targeting the UC, CSU and community college systems is not the answer.
After observing the amount of fiscal and legislative support the UC received from the 1960s to 1980, it’s clear that our state government needs to utilize monetary novelty and value the original integrity of the California public universities: quality higher education at an accessible and student-friendly price.
If you’d like to save money on tuition, e-mail Chung at lchung@media.ucla.edu. Send general comments to viewpoint@media.ucla.edu.