Today, for 3.2 million college students, California’s budget problems just got personal.  Gov. Schwarzenegger and the Republicans in the legislature have demanded across-the-board 10% cuts from every state program.  That’s about $1.1 billion that will be taken from higher education. So how will the schools make up for the loss of $1.1 billion? Easy. Raise student fees. And that’s exactly what they’re doing today.

Democrats have tried to stop the carnage. At today’s meeting of the CSU Board of Trustees, Lt. Gov. John Garamendi, noting that CSU student fees have risen 94% over the last five years, submitted a resolution to stop the fee hikes being proposed. But the Board ultimately voted to oppose Garamendi’s proposal, which would have capped student fees at 2007-08 levels and limited future fee increases to the rate of inflation. Instead, they voted to raise fees by 10%.

This afternoon the Lt. Gov. will make the same proposal at a meeting of the UC Board of Regents. Garamendi is a member of both boards by virtue of his office. The Regents will be considering a 7.4% fee hike.  UC fees have risen 84% since 2002. Students at California universities will now confront an estimated cost (including room, board, books, tuition and fees) of up to $24,000 per year at UC and $20,000 at CSU.

John Garamendi has made the cuts against higher education into a personal cause, working with the Students for California’s Future (a coalition including the Student Senate for California Community Colleges, the California State Student Association, and the University of California Student Association) to fight back against the budget cuts and proposed fee hikes. Here’s how John Garamendi framed the battle today:

“Twenty years from now, the social and economic landscape of California will look very different than it is today. There is virtually no question that our population will be bigger, more diverse, the elderly will make up a greater proportion of the population, and we will be likely grappling with the effects of climate change. To meet these challenges, we will undoubtedly need more teachers, more scientists, more engineers, and more workers trained in health care and advanced technology fields.

“Hiking taxes on our young people takes us in the opposite direction. Rather than making college available to more young people, fee hikes take California a step backward. The question before us, then, is whether we will continue to offer the California dream – to all our people — good jobs, good opportunities – or whether we will become increasingly stratified economically.

“Yes, our state is in a budget mess. But I believe that if our state can protect yacht owners and oil companies from tax hikes, we can certainly find a way to protect our young people from tax hikes. If we fail, who among us will tell a young person, who may be the first in their family to go to college, that they must be taxed more because yacht owners don’t want to pay more? Who will tell a family — struggling to put their child through college, while gas prices and food prices are out of sight — that they should be taxed more because the oil companies won’t pay more?”

The California Democratic Party has initiated the Summer of Change video contest to give Californians a chance to stand up and speak out for their interests in the budget discussions.  I’m attaching one of the video entries in our contest that was filmed at a recent rally that students organized in Sacramento. Check out the Students for California’s Future website — they have another day of action planned for this Monday, May 19.

Penny

Online Organizing Director

California Democratic Party