Arnold and UC

[nibot]

Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger issued a 2004-05 state budget proposal Friday with $372 million in cuts for the University of California system. The proposed cuts would reduce student enrollments, raise student fees, scale back student financial aid, reduce spending on faculty, eliminate K-12 outreach, and make deeper cuts to research, administration, and other programs. UC President Robert Dynes, in a newsletter to UC employees, calls the cuts understandable in light of the state's deficit, but notes that they will have "a very real impact on what this institution is able to accomplish for the people of California."

Comments

poor berkeley...

[emidala.livejournal.com]

why the hell don't they just close down uc riverside? no one goes there anyway, right?

[kari-marie.livejournal.com]

Sigh... And this is the guy that repealed the car tax. Sadly, I know a teacher who voted for him solely because she was buying a new car and didn't want to pay the higher car tax. Ugh.

I know the money has to come from somewhere, but when schools that are already financially strapped get cut even deeper, it kills me. As more of the cost of "fees" (because of course tuition is free for in-state students, right?) are passed onto students, less and less of the lower-income kids are gonna be able to afford it, even if they do their first two years at a JC. Bummer.

[nibot.livejournal.com]

and rumors have it that Bush is going to announce plans for some kind of "moon base" (please pronounce that like Dr. Evil pronounces "LASER" in Austin Powers).. these people are off their rockers.

A moon base would be cool. But a moon base and a tax refund??

[kari-marie.livejournal.com]

My sis famously_fruity wrote a great poem about that:

People are cold
To the moon, George
People are hungry
To the moon, George
Millions are jobless
To the moon, George
People are fighting wars
To the moon, George
Fifth-graders are illiterate
To the moon, George
Children are being left behind
To the moon, George
My school computer crashes hourly
To the moon, George
My school computer is older than my students
To the moon, George
I spend large amounts of my money to better my classroom
To the moon, George
The school feeds my students pop-tarts for breakfast and then expects them to perform, grow, and learn
To the moon, George
Where does our president want to spend copious amounts of my money in order to look like a humanitarian?
To the moon, George
Where does this whole situation make me want to send our fearless leader who captured Saddam and single-handedly resored justice in Iraq?
To the moon, George, to the moon

education

[fanlain.livejournal.com]

i don't understand how california's education is as cheap it is. i did my grad at calstate hayward - the out-of-state fees there were the same as my in-state fees in PA.

note that the economy in PA is a far cry from CA. not to mention the numbers from way low income families like mine. i'm the first in my family to go to undergrad since my family moved here in the 1800s. i'll be the last for a few generations i think.

Pennsylvania

[nibot.livejournal.com]

But that is, in a sense, irrelevent. After all, Washington DC has a vastly higher crime rate than here in California, yet that doesn't mean everything here is fine and dandy. More specifically, I am confused by an argument that seems to justify a large cut to university funding in exchange for tax cuts based upon the reasoning that "Californians are spoiled anyway." Just because education is expensive in Pennsylvania doesn't mean that it should be expensive here too. Your low-income-family background should only increase your support for affordable education! Basically, I don't understand your position, unless you're just bitter. Or perhaps I completely misunderstand, and you're just stating facts without intending them to be interpreted in this way.

Re: Pennsylvania

[fanlain.livejournal.com]

well yeah i'm bitter. i see so many lower income students all around me growing up and most can't afford education. i even wrote to my state legislator when i was an undergrad, asking them why education is so expensive and restricts the poor. all i got was a letter back, asking me to vote for him. not even addressing the issue. and as an art major you can't get funding. and i got yelled at for applied for minority funding b/c i'm white - i was arguing that was the minority that is the subset of the majority that isn't fucking rich and has similar, if not worse, economic situations than some of the so-called minority. turns out that's not a sufficient point for one to make. so yeah i am bitter. with good reason. i have lots of student loans to pay back and i made it through undergrad on two credit cards and practically starving myself. i worked 2 jobs and went to school full-time. how many californian students do you know who have to do that? my family couldn't afford to help me.

i think it's totally fair to compare other states. we do other issues, don't we? and yes i do think a lot of californians have it far better off than other states and don't appreciate that their education is already much cheaper and some also have better economic situations.

hikes always suck. i'm just saying some other states have it worse is all but *shrug* who cares?

Re: Pennsylvania

[fanlain.livejournal.com]

most of the students - white and minority - that i went to college with were a higher economic status than my family. i endured my freshman year being called "hick girl" and being laughed at b/c my family wasn't as worldly as some of the kids i was competing against who had private tutoring in the arts. it was rather depressing during my adjustment phase where i pretty much started avoiding kids like that.

but yeah i just think these hikes are bad but when you compare to other states and put it into perspective, it's still a better situation than other states are facing for who can go to college.

Re: Pennsylvania

[nibot.livejournal.com]

Certainly... and we want to keep it that way! (eg, accessible education in California)

State schools were originally free for Californians. That they have any fees at all is a result of this sort of fee-creep.

Re: Pennsylvania

[fanlain.livejournal.com]

actually, someone has to pay for the education? you have to bridge the gap b/w making it available to everyone for nothing and coming up w/ the costs for it. i'm just saying that california, compared to other states, already has it pretty easy.

[erinmack.livejournal.com]

These new fare hikes ARE fucking depressing, but the Pennsylvanian is right -- even with the increases, UC tuition is less than half at what one pays at Penn State.

I'm glad I'm not a grad student!

[easwaran.livejournal.com]

I'm really glad I am a grad studen't, because I've got basically guaranteed funding, no matter how much fees increase. I've heard that in the school of Social Work they tend not to get funding though, so I'm worried for them. But in the more "core" disciplines, like math, philosophy, physics, even english and history, people tend to get funding almost always.

[hailseitan.livejournal.com]

This is true -- I intend to eventually get a library science master's, and I should be pretty covered. (First, I have to stop confusing the insane BART _fare_ hikes with the tuition _fee_ hikes, though. Heh.)

the costs of education to the actual poor

[fanlain.livejournal.com]

try doing these costs w/ no funding and no financial aid
and you're working 1-2 part-time jobs just to stay and
you graduate w/ a lot of student loan debt unless you're
very wealthy.

california colleges are WAY cheaper than pennsylvania even
though pennsylvania is predominantly farmers and those on
welfare or seriously low income - with the exception of some
ppl who actually are in the "metro" areas like philly or
pittsburgh who might actually be able to afford these prices?

my father is a mechanic/scrapyward worker earning minimum wage
to support 5 ppl total (including him) and my mother a
high school dropout who didn't work. my dad opted to not take
welfare tho we were eligible b/c he said there are way more
ppl who need it more than we did. imagine if you were faced
with zero money and these costs like so many others - most
ppl who come from backgrounds like mine don't make it through
college. most of my friends freshman year never finished.

i really think many californians have far better situations...
and it's not *your* fault but i wanted to show you some perspective.
i would have been better off leaving my home state earlier, coming
to california and bumming around for a year to gain residency than
getting education in my own state. too bad i didn't know that
years ago and i wouldn't have the student loan debt i have now (um,
essentially paying for a car...)

.................

jc college: http://www.pct.edu/finaid/cost.html

in-state: $298/credit or $4,470/semester
out-of-state: $375 out-of-state or $5,625/semester

(that doesn't count housing, meals, books)

jc in california is like $11/credit?

.................

my undergrad kutztown.edu (one of the cheaper state schools)

Pennsylvania Residents $2,987.00
Out-of-State Residents $6,461.00

and that's if you commute. on campus:

Pennsylvania Residents $5,542.00
Out-of-State Residents $9,016.00

(note the practially similar cost b/w jc and state univeristy)

.................

penn state university (depending upon campus)

in-state $9,621-$10,743
out-of-state $14,467-$20,597

(that doesn't count housing, meals, books)

let's compare that to uc berkeley which is WAY cheaper:

in-state $ 5,858
Non-resident tuition add $14,210 so closer to $20,000

....

unless i finance my family, i don't see another person in my family being able to afford education for quite a few generations.

Re: the costs of education to the actual poor

[nibot.livejournal.com]

That the situation is good in California is no reason to let it get worse.

Re: the costs of education to the actual poor

[fanlain.livejournal.com]

i never, ever said to make the situation worse. i'm saying to keep it into perspective and to appreciate that the situation is still - even with the increase in costs - way better than what other, even poorer states are facing. but yeah who cares about anyone else?

btw, i was told in my county alone that there are 3,000 kids who don't have medical insurance b/c both of their parents can't afford it. worse, a significant percentage of these kids have working parents who are working full-time *and* still can't afford medical insurance.

arnie is also cutting some funds to health care and also increasing education costs. frankly, i wouldn't mind if some of the ppl who can afford the education have to pay a little more to help out with the existing budget crisis than to have even more kids go without medical care.

i'm just saying, it helps to look at the overall budget to see why education costs are going up. and to also compare it what other states are facing and to appreciate that even with education costs going up, californians still have it better than other, more economically disadvantageous states.

what, exactly, do you define as "worse" here? not everything can be free and someone has to pay for it somewhere. would you rather no education gets increased and have even more kids w/o medical coverage? the vehicle license fee didn't help. and taking property tax revenue away from the local governments isn't helping.

i think it might also be nice to raise the taxes in order to share the burden across the classes. but no one wants to raise taxes so then we have to take the existing budget and make cuts. this also means i most likely am also not going to be able to teach college this semester - i'm already one of the last part-time teachers to get cut. fortunately, my teaching job isn't my sole source of income.

i guess i think that b4 ppl whine about the education costs raising, it might be nice to step back a little bit and think about how much of a hit others have to take to appreciate how much you have.