California's higher-education debacle
@wunmansho continued%u2026
%u2026 going even if it means taking summer courses, taking on multiple jobs, or even temporarily leaving school because we can no longer afford our educations. Do you really think that we would be stupid enough to tear pages out of text books and turn them into something as juvenile as a paper airplane? Do you really think that we would desecrate a text book that we have spent our hard earned money on? It is not uncommon for a student to spend $200 or more on text books for just one quarter or semester. Us %u2018kids%u2019 can%u2019t help the fact that text books get updated. Us %u2018kids%u2019 understand that it can be difficult and it should be difficult because otherwise we wouldn%u2019t truly appreciate the true value of our educations and strength gained from our struggles. We%u2019re not saying that it should not be difficult. We%u2019re just saying that %u2018us kids%u2019 should not be prevented from receiving an education. Everyone who wants a quality education deserves a chance to pursue it. Just so you know, you spell %u2018succeded%u2019 with two e%u2019s (succeeded).
xcsuxstudentx (11/09/2009, 11:42 PM )
@ wunmansho
Do you really believe that this is all about textbooks, classrooms, and ac units? This is about people who make the choice to further their educations having the ability to do so. This is about students that cannot move forward with their educations because classes that are normally available are being cut due to lack of funding. One CSU institution completely cancelled classes for the summer quarter. This meant students who were set to graduate in that summer quarter could no longer do so. This meant that students that had jobs lined up to start in the fall could no longer take that job because they could not complete their degrees. This meant that students who signed up for classes they needed were kept at a standstill. This meant that these students could not move forward or move ahead with their educations. The CSU institution did offer those students alternatives but those options were limited and not everyone was lucky enough to be able to take advantage of those opportunities. Sometimes classes with a number of students enrolled are cancelled because the dollar can only stretch so far. I have encountered Professors that will take on additional classes without pay or take on the burden of paying for class materials despite the fact that they have families to support and bills to pay. With fewer class sections available us %u2018kids%u2019 do what we can to keep ...
xcsuxstudentx (11/09/2009, 11:41 PM )
From http://www.unit9news.org/2009/11/20-managers-laid-off-at-chancellors.html
Yesterday the Chancellor's Office announced the layoff (or "non-retention") of 20 managers at the Chancellor's Office. The move is part of a reorganization of the Chancellor's Office Information and Technology Services Division. The affected employees are in the Management Personnel Plan (MPP).
CSU_Watcher (11/07/2009, 11:53 AM )
How many "billable hours" did you spend writing this croc? If you were a doctor, teacher or entrepeneur helping tax-paying California citizens, you would be taken more seriously. Lawyers add to the problems of our state.
ylteacher (11/06/2009, 8:08 PM )
Where were you when the Legistators were establishing budgets. Where were all you OP_EDs? I don't give a damn about your resume today. The community colleges, state colleges and Universities have been ripped off. You should have been yelling and screaming for as long as you were on the Board. You can't get away with "KISS AND TELL" regarding what is going on within our educational system. Your resume is one of failure. We need leaders that understand the educational system is paramount for a strong economy, good citizens, and functional indviduals in Californial.
Let me know how you feel at teccoord@yahoo.com.
teccoord (11/06/2009, 1:27 PM )
Mr Bleich is naive.
California has a constitution which requires a balanced budget. All the legislature and executive branches of the states government seem to have little aggreement toward balancing the budgets. The judicial has various lega interpretations in applying the constitution. Justice and fairness have,no standing in the system and are meaningless terms.
The economy and ability to pay during an economic downturn has to balanced with paying down debt and saving in the good times. A lesson we dont seem to learn.
Redistribution of tax money to balance or adjust expenditures has to be tempered without agendas but necessity.
......
"Today, everyone in our system is making terrible sacrifices. Employee furloughs, student fee increases and campus-based cuts in service and programs are repulsive to all of us. Most important, it is unfair. The cost of education should be shared by all of us because the education of our students benefits every Californian."
carlassare (11/06/2009, 8:48 AM )
CALIFORNIA PRISON UNIVERSITY? DO THE MATH!
University System 670,000 Students 217,000 Employee's = $10 Billion
Prison System 170,000 "Students" 67,000 Employee's = $10 Billion
EDUCATE NOW...OR INCARCERATE LATER
The numbers say it all. Mr. Bleich is right that not enough emphasis is put on education in California today.
In 40 years California built 24 new prisons - but only 1 new university. Does that not tell you where California's priority is? Prison is the "education" that California tax $$$$ are paying for. Seasoned criminals "educate" first time offenders to prisons and when released these first time offenders have been hardened and return to society worse than when they entered prison.
California is imploding. Everyone wants money for this and that - but no one wants to pay for it. California has taxed businesses to the point they have left the state and there are few who are willing to bring their business to California to replace them. The prison INDUSTRY is flourishing in California however.
It is time for California to WAKE UP. Stop believing what elected officials who have been bought and paid for by the prison guards union say. Seek the truth and educate yourselves on what is really happening in California. Otherwise, the State will keep sinking, and soon there will be NO money for education or other programs. It will ALL go to prisons.
hatfieldx6 (11/06/2009, 7:12 AM )
http://russellkildayhicks.wordpress.com/2009/11/06/dear-csu-trustee-chair-bleich/
rkilhick (11/06/2009, 12:06 AM )
Gee, why is CSU chairman Bleich's call for more education support causing all these flames about illegal immigrants taking up too many prison beds? Y'all are proving his point. If you don't invest in education, the state fills up with yahoos who get taken by every grifter with a scary story about "illegals". Oooooh. If all those immigrants you're so scared of were "legal", they'd be paying taxes, and we'd all be richer. And if you'd invested in some education of your own, you'd know the difference between "socialism" (ooooooh, scary) and public infrastructure, like highways, bridges -- and higher education -- which we pay for, because we can't get along without.
logographer (11/05/2009, 11:04 PM )
If people like this author had not transformed the California University System into a junk science, Liberal, anti business indoctrination mill maybe most of the graduates over the last 20 years would not have demonized all the industries in California and worked to shut them down.
We have decimated our logging, milling, farming, fishing, mining, manufacturing, oil producing, energy producing, trucking and raw materials industries so that they no longer exist.
We have every resource we need to prosper and support all worthwhile causes but it is now a crime to engage in any vocation that utilizes our natural resources or need for commercial production.
As a result we have nothing to market but tourist sites, restaurants and hotels for people who live in states that welcome job producing industry and choose to vacation here. You can't pay for a first class education system with illegal immigrant hotel workers and convenience store clerks supplying the tax base.
I wonder how many first class industries the authors "award winning" law firm has sued out of the state? I wonder how many refineries and oil wells he has been hired to shut down or prevent from being built?
Typical Liberal.
Still blaming the fact that we don't free enough criminals instead of admitting that THEY have destroyed our bread & butter tax base.
Government employees don't pay taxes, they eat them.
RET423 (11/05/2009, 10:39 PM )
He's right. American's have abandoned themselves. Our society has gotten tired of working hard for corporations and development that drain them of life rather than inspire them to greatness and take a disproportionate amount of profits. America has used itself to death. All is not lost; get to being your best. What%u2019s it really like to help each other succeed rather than just power through a protocol? I%u2019m glad we are addressing issues in our society. Thanks for bringing this up Mr. Bleich.
Eyebright (11/05/2009, 9:58 PM )
The problem with socialism is sooner or later your run out of someone else's money!
Creative accounting, living on borrowed money, cooking books, and paint have one thing in common: they hide reality.
J1ack (11/05/2009, 9:49 PM )
According to the CSU system's website, thirty-eight percent of the incoming freshmen, for the 2008-2009 intake, failed the math exam. Forty seven percent failed the English exam.
Seems like CSU could reject one third to one half of the incoming freshmen as unqualified, spread differently the money saved, and provide higher quality education to those who are qualified.
Or is that too much like just saying no?
FledtheState (11/05/2009, 6:54 PM )
Mr. Bleich is right about the change of direction in California spending: Too many absurd convictions because we have taken discretionary decisions out of the hands of judges with mandated sentencing. This has resulted in unnecessary jail time, absurdly long sentences, massive overcrowding of our prisons - the highest conviction rate in the world, appalling conditions for our prisoners to endure, all while bankrupting the state budget and stripping our higher education system to the bone. What is wrong with this picture?
SusyQ3 (11/05/2009, 5:58 PM )
State of California shold be taken over by people like Mr.Bleich to put it in its proper place. Not only the standard of education going down in California, along with it goes blatant and gross inhuman misconduct at the administrative level-not only the employee furlough, cut-back in student-aid for education, high unemployment for experienced PhD's, forced resignation (so that the employers do not have to pay their share of unemployment insurance) to gain their own financial advantage at the cost of others-are the pictures of the day and the moral decline that has permeated to every strata of the state and the nation. Not only the American dream destroyed, it has extinguished even the simple human dream to live in harmony with each other, by some of the perpetrators' staunch belief and support of human injustice, to push the humane world to oblivion.
socratesOH (11/05/2009, 5:57 PM )
Jeff, you should have escaped years ago. The problem is all you CA ninnies chased away or deter influx of good professionals. You desecrate and marginalize the US Constitution and sadly the govt has made it the #1 nannystate. You allow illegal immigrants in and promote modern day slavery...really what do you fools expect? More troubling is the rising senseless the cost of education. Do we really need these ornate, elaborate schools that cost millions to build and maintain (and come with huge debt)? Why should taxpayers fund these extraordinarily expense costs when the reality is everyone should be taking less out of the system and putting more in. That's the new, conscious-less, texting, laptop toting fools new mantra. Look at Wall St. that does nothing but sit around hiring the brightest minds to do nothing but plunder Americans. You're not witnessing anything abnormal from Rome's experience. Don't be surprised now that the crazy liberal nonsense has exploded you now have socialism. Your problem really stems from running out of other people's money, greed and refusing to listen to people (including myself) that warned you fools. I refuse to spend money in the state or ever live there. Gov Schwartz. ruined my dreams of Californication with his latest anti-2nd Amend. laws. Sorry, I will not sell-out my Constitutional rights for higher education or anything.
ThomassJefferson (11/05/2009, 5:38 PM )
How noble of Mr. Bleich to lament the decline of the CSU, and to urge readers to take action! I ask him, though, where was this initiative on July 21, when he and 16 other trustees voted to hike fees? Seems that the only trustee to vote against the fee increase was Lt. Gov. John Garamendi. Mr. Bleich can go wash his hands somewhere else!
PedroSa (11/05/2009, 5:02 PM )
sara123123 (11/05/2009, 7:40 AM ) and nelsonah (11/05/2009, 5:35 AM ) have both already hit the nail squarely on the head. By way of clarification, I have only a few questions to put to those who advocate further spending before the socialist sky falls.
If you take the total dollars spent on higher education in California from ALL sources and divide this by the number of California university students who are legal residents of California to get a legitimate per student expenditure and, then, multiply this by the average class size to get the expenditure for each class, you get the per class cost. How much is this per class cost?
After you deduct the direct pro rata cost of the instructor, not including retirement fund costs, the rest is waste. How much is this waste per classroom and why aren%u2019t we eliminating it before asking taxpayers for more? I suspect that the voting public would like to have this number.
randytaff (11/05/2009, 3:47 PM )
I remember Friedman's Free to Choose series, one chapter on education where he especially criticized California funded education. Go look at it. Sounds like you are getting a taste of the Conservative agenda where every function must be privatized and a profit made. You pay as you go and if you can't, borrow. Kids can leave college $40,000 in debt. Friedman pedaled his agenda in Argentina and and the privatized Utopia collapsed the economy. On the other hand, tax and spend Democrats need to sit down and get a new plan.
Randy4523 (11/05/2009, 3:38 PM )
I was educated at UC Berkeley and I am now a faculty member at UC Irvine. Jeff Bleich is telling it like it is--we are neglecting the education system in California to all our detriment. For those that are concerned with paying taxes to support education of California's young people, let me try an analogy. If you are short of money, you can choose not to replace the oil in your car. It will work fine for a year or two, and then it will seize up and die. Strong public education has fueled the high tech sector and many more industries in California. If companies cannot get well educated workers, those jobs will go elsewhere, to the detriment of California's population. Drastically underfund higher education in California, and the economy will crash in the next decade. It is an experiment we are running.
srychnov (11/05/2009, 3:11 PM )
Silicon valley was built from the educated workforce provided by Stanford, UC Berkeley, San Jose State....
LA's workforce for Aerospace was fueled by USC, UCLA, Caltech, Cal State Long Beach, Cal State LA, ...
San Diego's thriving biotech community originated with talent from UCSD, TSRI, San Diego State, and Qualcomm was started by a UCSD faculty member.
Stanford, UC Berkeley, and UCSF faculty largely started the Bay Area biotech.
The tax return from the profitable corporations and employees provides a return on investment that the general public and politicians don't seem to grasp fully.
ucsdchem (11/05/2009, 3:07 PM )
I for one don%u2019t want to subsidize the creation of anymore lawyers.
Diego_Dad (11/05/2009, 3:01 PM )
When I came to CSUN after becoming a resident, I paid $95 a semester for an outstanding education. I had chosen CSUN because of one special program and one very special professor. It was everything I had hoped. I then attended CSUN grad school a few years later in the Journalism Dept. Again, it was $385 a semester and a spectacular education. Now my daughter wants to attend the same graduate program after she graduates from UCSC this spring. I am sad that she will only get a small portion of the education that I received and at what could be too great a financial burden for her future. It is sickening. Shame on every single person who believes that supporting tax cuts and prison spending make for true patriotism. Shame! I blame the YouTube generation of all ages.
msjetbn (11/05/2009, 2:57 PM )
Public education and health care are more cost-effective than disease and crime. Lack of health-care produces more disease, and a lot of those are contagious. Lack of education leads to poverty, and poverty leads to crime. It is no more to our benefit to reduce spending on education and deal with the corresponding increase in crime than it is to refuse to invest in health care and deal with a rise in contagious diseases. Jobs requiring higher education also tend to pay more, which means more money from income taxes in the future. By investing in health care and education, you are really investing in yourself.
dougneedsname (11/05/2009, 2:52 PM )
What about the absolutely outrageous and downright disgusting salaries and pensions that the CSU chancellors and presidents are getting? These are the people are killing the system. There is no justification for the size of the salaries and pensions in the hundreds of thousands of dollars being paid to these folks . How can these people sleep ant night knowing that they are preventing people who want to go to school from doing so by taking such huge pensions and payrolls?
notnalbeoj (11/05/2009, 2:51 PM )
People in CA remind of the people in MA. They vote on all these ridiculous entitlement programs and then wonder why the state is bankrupt. MA residents who can't afford the cost of living anymore are moving to NH and guess what; the morons are doing the same thing there. Go figure.
robt555 (11/05/2009, 2:49 PM )
This analysis leaves out some important facts. California already (still) has the highest tax burden of any state, and an enormous and growing deficit fueled by excessive spending even beyond the huge government income. Spending on social programs and subsidization is massive in California; the few voter initiatives to slow the taxpayer hemorrhage are minor impediments to our massive tax and spend maw. California is living the dream for "progressive" liberal nanny-statehood.
What have we achieved? Poverty, debt, a collapsing education system (which still consumes an enormous share of the state budget), an exodus of skilled labor, and complete corrupt incompetence and malfeasance in our "leadership". And the "enlightened" solution is to dump even more money into the wasteful pit of our public education dysfunctional bureaucratic entitlement nightmare?
At some point, doesn't it make more sense to admit the failure of socialism, and try to salvage what remains of the once-great golden state? Even if that means giving up on fundamentally flawed ideals which still look enticing in their conceptual idealistic splendor? Perhaps they will be ridiculed here and elsewhere, but the true would-be heroes for California are those with the IQ to realize that the current path is a road to ruin, and the will to oppose those who would keep us on it to the bitter end.
nick42 (11/05/2009, 2:33 PM )
I am an Engineer who got his degree at CSULB. I also went to UCLA for a time. My daughter is currently attending CSULB. I am shocked at how much the school has changed since I graduated.
The people of California have easily been repaid for their investment in me. If people are so ill informed as to not realize how much college educated people help our society, I shudder to think what our state will become. There are massive benefits to having an educated people and the more education you have the better for the state. When did a lack of education become something to celebrate?
kenjust (11/05/2009, 1:19 PM )
To nelsonah (11/05/2009, 5:35 AM ): So you will show us, then, how illegal immigrants are the major source of California's tax woes? I bet you $20 they're not.
heybebeh88 (11/05/2009, 11:19 AM )
Thanks to Jeff Bleich for this timely article. One thing he might have added was some historical perspective. When California invested in public education, and public higher education in particular, its economy boomed. The Master Plan and the high tech boom went hand in hand. California's public colleges were a huge success, and became a model of public higher education in the rest of the country. Then the Prop 13 people and their heirs started demanding that government revenues be eviscerated. Right wing screamers can yell all they want about cutting the fat, but the fat's already been cut. What we have left on the plate in the CSU system is a couple of pathetic dry bones, along with a declining economy that is has no hope of reviving unless we invest in education and educate kids so they can become the innovators of the future. It's time for Californians to take back their great Progressive heritage and bring back government that pursues the public good, instead of pandering to a vocal minority of right wing zealots.
historymom (11/05/2009, 9:09 AM )
Mr. Bleich, sooner or later socialists run out of other people's money. In addition, California can not afford to feed, clothe, house, education and provide health care to Mexico. Prisons are filled with illegals who have committed crimes in California and turning violent criminals out on the streets to afford more money for Berkley is not an option. Citizens won't make it to Berkley if they are dead.
sara123123 (11/05/2009, 7:40 AM )
Mr. Bleich neglects to discuss the major cause for the public's lack of enthusiasm for paying it forward. No one wants to sacrifice to build something in their community to see it raided and plundered by outsiders who have not sacrificed to help build it. It becomes indentured servitude. Taxes for educating illegal immigrants, taxes for healthcare for the illegal immigrants, welfare for illegal immigrants lucky enough to give birth in the U.S. Wave, after wave, of locusts feeding off the efforts of hardworking citizens. If you want us to help build it, you must help us protect it. Talk is cheap. Until you can show us fiduciary responsibility in protecting our investments, we will not invest. Make sure that the institutions we have helped build are reserved for the people who have built them and we will come back.
nelsonah (11/05/2009, 5:35 AM )
Mr. Bleich says "California's public universities and community colleges have half as much to spend today as they did in 1990 in real dollars" but this just isn't true. State and local spending on post-secondary public education in California is up 27 percent since 1990 in real dollars.
t_a_harvey (11/05/2009, 3:13 AM )
Coming to the end of this compilation of hackneyed cliches, I found myself certain that the writer was a leftist tool. And sure enough, he is a 'counselor' to the current statist, tax-and-spend occupant of the White House. It doesn't even take a Google search to establish the presence of the long tentacles of this cabal anymore.
Mr. Bleich, you congratulate yourself on how smart you are. But as smart as you think you are, you have missed the boat on this one.
California taxpayers are groaning under the onerous burden of working their butts off to fund government-union worker payrolls. These payrolls are a triple whammy on those of us lucky enough to still have the privilege of being privately employed: we get taxed to fund people who are never held accountable for the quality of their work, who add no value to the economy (they subtract it), who are paid more than the average private sector worker, who cannot be fired, and who then go out and spend our money to 'community organize' (i.e., buy votes) to hold on to their jobs and expand government.
Mr. Bleich, stop using taxpayer money to fund your army of political operatives, aka public sector unions, liberal college professors and everyone else associated with the Democrat party. Concentrate on providing a necessary service, rather than on propagandizing for Obama's push to control everything we say and do.
ajmalkov (11/05/2009, 1:25 AM )
During my 10 years as a CSU professor I've learned a lot of things. I've learned that teaching at a CSU means not getting any institutional support for the teaching, research and service that is part of my job. It means that I have to pay for my own photocopies, materials, and other things that my students need to have, even though I can barely afford my own expenses. It means that at 40 yrs of age I have to work 2 extra jobs outside of my full-time tenured teaching position just to pay basic living expenses. It means that I'll never be able to buy a home or afford a family. Finally, I've learned that teaching at a CSU means that California--its government and a great many of its people--doesn't respect me or my work, despite the fact that I am killing myself to prepare a new generation of citizens to think outside of themselves in order to maintain and/or IMPROVE our world.
Teaching for the CSU system is destroying me...both economically and spiritually. I need to leave before I learn to hate teaching.
csufac (11/05/2009, 12:11 AM )
California is in a budget crisis - why is it that only the students, faculty of the state college system and other state employed people are being made to suffer for this. Raise taxes, make EVERYONE who lives in this state help solve the problem. It is so backwards that California spends more on prisons than on education. Get it right people - if you want to live here, pay for it!
kiwiinla (11/04/2009, 9:35 PM )
I just get sick of hearing people blame a limping education system on inadequate unmotivated teachers and a lack of money to spend. This is a liberal syndrome that has infected the very psyche of our culture and has made it fashionable to willfully suspend common sense. What difference does it make if kids are using a 12 year old history book? Liberals will whine about it because it doesnt contain enough of thier 'America bad' version of things but theres plenty to learn there that simply isnt being done. Is having a new textbook going to keep the cover from being torn off and the pages from being turned into airplanes? How is a freshly painted classroom and a new fifty ton ac unit going to get a kid to do what hes supposed to do? It is a filthy liberal deception that you can change a persons attitude or what he thinks simply by spending money. Pouring sympathy on a single mother who strangely finds it difficult to mine her sustenance AND get through an education at an elite institution is a perfect example of how liberal ideology has nearly succeded in convincing us that there just isnt anything that should be difficult. Few are born with greatness. Making mistakes and overcoming adversity are vastly underrated because it is through those that the vast sum of us might ever achieve it. The simple fact is that character and discpline are cultivated in the home and until this is
wunmansho (11/04/2009, 8:59 PM )
@douglaslove and others like him: What part of $4.41 return on every $1 do you not understand? The CSU isn't stealing your money, it's turning it into public good. Or do you not want any nurses, teachers, accountants, police officers, corrections officers, or any of the other professionals you rely on?
FAILING to fund the CSU is COSTING THE STATE MONEY.
So tell you what: instead of every dollar you pay in taxes that goes to the CSU, we'll close the whole system down, and charge you $4.41 instead. Obviously, you'll take that deal, since you don't think the CSU should be funded. In fact, instead of funding the CSU and getting $4.41 back on your $1, instead, just send me the $4.41 you're sacrificing per $1 of your taxes.
DocNagel007 (11/04/2009, 8:47 PM )
realised and the adjustments made there we will continue to decline and your liberal spendocracy is only just so much urine in the wind!
wunmansho (11/04/2009, 8:41 PM )
Save more than
The only "fringe" that the Democrats have reached is that they have adopted the philosopy of the old Republican party. Let's get real here, bub. The corporations have greater influence over universities than ever before. That's because of your ilk. Don't play this lame blame game. Take responsibility for your own actions. Show a little backbone. Cut the sniveling. How about why don't we have morally grounded young people graduating from our universities that want to make a career in government service? You folks. Instead we have self-serving morons from private schools like USC. Between you folks, Jerry Brownshoes and Willy Jeff, it's hard too chose who is more morally corrupt.
outside_the_bell (11/11/2009, 11:16 PM )