( – promoted by Brian Leubitz)

I don’t think that many Californians will disagree with this statement: University Education is Critical to the Future of California and Californians.  And, while many may not like it, this state is a state of immigrants. We are all from somewhere else (well, with the exception of the state’s Native-Americans) and are working to move our state forward.  Put those two statements together, and you’ll see why the California Dream Act is so important.

Please see the extended.

The Dream Act doesn’t do anything revolutionary, it simply allows students who graduated from California high schools receive financial aid. These aren’t people flowing over the border just trying to steal the money of good old boys, these are people that have been in the U.S., many since a very young age.  These are people trying to better themselves for the future.  Or, put more properly, this is the future of our state.

Now, the DREAM Act doesn’t answer every question that should be addressed. Heck, even Texas actively promotes its university system within Mexico.  We are doing something that is vital to both California and Mexico by educating talented individuals.  We promote prosperity on both sides of the border, an economic precursor to the end of our immigration problems.

Let’s face facts people, even Hillary Clinton, whose husband worked to pass NAFTA, admits that it hasn’t “been as successful as we expected”. Um, sure, yeah, we can put it gently if we want, but what NAFTA has done is to allow American companies to exploit the relatively cheaper labor of Mexico.  They want to exploit the fact that their workers work in terrible conditions with few, if any, environmental controls.  And we see the results particularly strong in border states. We see pollutants drifting across in our air and our water. We see people desperate to escape the maquiladores, border factories, where they are abused and exploited in conditions that would make Upton Sinclair cringe.

Yet we do this all in the name of globalization without stopping to think how we can balance the boat. If a rising tide really does lift all boats (right Reagan? right Romney? McCain? Thompson?), shouldn’t we be trying to lift all boats, the most talented boats? On both sides of the border?

We must open our universities, our systems of higher learning to all that would help make this state great. That begins with admissions, but we must also include the ability to pay for the privilege.  This is how we work for the future, by building the fortunes of all involved.