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

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.