State Is Throwing Away College Dreams

Once upon a time, say five years ago, May was a magical time for graduating high school seniors in Moorpark.

All of the anxious waiting to hear whether you were accepted to the college of your choice, all of the uncertainty of what the next few years would look like, all of the pressure of doing well on the SATs and ACTs and APs was over. Thoughts were turned towards Prom night and the fun that was allowed to go on well into the morning hours.

Graduation from high school truly was a commencement. The fact that most students in Moorpark would go to college was a given. That college was, for the most part, affordable was taken for granted. Another graduating class was taking the leap of faith into their own futures.

This year, the expectations of students have been lowered. It is no longer presumed that all students will be headed to college. Uncertainty has replaced the endless planning and anticipation that had been the birthright of all graduating high school students. 

California has always been different from the rest of the country. California had a Master Plan. That meant access to higher education of some sort for nearly all graduating high school seniors. With a labyrinth of  nine University of California campuses, 23 California State University locations, and 112 community colleges, if one wanted a higher education, it was available and affordable. 

The taxpayers and legislators were clear about the need for this opportunity if California was to thrive economically. If the future did indeed belong to the next generation, our children, then we were required to maintain the brilliant concept of the Master Plan. And for more than 50 years, the torch was faithfully passed on.

No longer. After years of budget cuts and the hugely disproportionate inflation of tuition and fees, all of the state’s higher education institutions are facing devastating losses for the coming academic year. Here it is May, and still the Legislature has not been able to settle on a very overdue budget so the schools must assume the worst and students will bear the brunt of the utter failure of the State of California to function in the most minimal way.

Is there no shame in Sacramento? Is there no connection whatsoever to reality? And, I must truly wonder, why are these people getting paid when they have flatly refused to do their jobs? Yet, their pay, perks, pensions, benefits and privileges remain intact. For what? For presiding over the destruction of a system that took decades of hard work and sacrifice to build. In just five years, a system of education that was the envy of the country, if not the world, has been reduced to a shadow of it’s former greatness, dreams that can no longer be realized by students who will be paying outrageous tuition and fees.

Aside from the doubling of tuition at the UC schools, the exponential increase of tuition at CSU campuses, and the slashing of available classes at the community colleges, these institutions are again facing an impossible task. Without a state budget, and in addition to all of the previous budget cuts, UC and CSU will need to absorb an additional $500 million in cuts each this fall. Community colleges will have to do without an additional $400 million. 

What have we done to our children’s future?  When will we insist that those who rail about budget waste  yet do all they can to preserve tax cuts for the wealthiest be held accountable? When will we truly understand that as our children go, so goes the fate of California?

We are about to hear Gov. Jerry Brown’s new “all cuts” budget, which is expected to eviscerate the very soul of California. There will be no putting the state back together again. Could an enemy of the state have done worse?