After a month of high-profile activities that included protests, town hall meetings and student-led campus walkouts, the California Faculty Association is cautiously optimistic that the state Legislature may restore funds that had been cut in the governor's budget for the California State University (CSU) system.
Education budget subcommittees in both houses of the state Legislature voted to restore more than $220 million in funding for the California State University as of May 21, about a week after the governor had proposed cutting millions.
"This is a hopeful step," says John Travis, president of the California Faculty Association, which represents 23,000 CSU faculty. "It is a victory for the coalition of business and community leaders who have spoken out through the Coalition to Save the CSU, and for all those who want to save the CSU.
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CFA President John Travis (left) hosts a roundtable discussion with columnist Arianna Huffington, State Treasurer Phil Angelides and student activist John Kincaid.
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"The huge cuts the governor proposed for the CSU would be a terrible blow after $311 million in cuts already made this year. We commend the members of the subcommittees for mitigating the cuts in their budget recommendations."
The proposals face several more committee hearings before an actual agreement is reached.
More recently, the CFA openly opposed a "higher education compact" that had been negotiated between the governor and leaders of the UC and CSU systems. Under the deal the governor negotiated with University of California President Robert Dynes and California State University Chancellor Charles Reed, a proposed hike in graduate school tuition would be softened and a proposal to limit future enrollment would be abandoned. In exchange, the universities would accept a one-time spending cut in the fiscal year that begins in July.
In keeping with the terms of the compact, CSU trustees recently approved a 14 percent hike in tuition for students attending the 23-campus system. That's on top of tuition increases of 10 percent a year ago and 30 percent last fall. The deal does nothing to prevent CSU from turning away thousands of qualified students who are now being diverted to community colleges. In addition, some campuses have also had to consider further targeted cuts. San Francisco State University, for example, has backed off an earlier proposal that would have eliminated its entire School of Engineering, but may be making cuts in other programs, such as sports teams and coaches' salaries.
"The CSU is in a crisis mode," says Travis, a political science professor at Humboldt State University. "Any further cuts on top of the millions the CSU has already lost will strangle its ability to educate the future leaders and workers of the state."
News of the deal prompted an outcry from CFA and students, who have been involved in a number of protests over the past several weeks. Both faculty and students have participated in student walk-outs and demonstrations, including a raucous protest in front of a Santa Monica restaurant owned by the governor.
"The people who spend their time in the classroom - the faculty and the students - are furious about the compact," says Travis. "It was made by two administrators who obviously do not have the best interests of education in mind. The faculty and students of the CSU cannot accept these cuts."
CFA has taken the lead in forming a coalition of faculty, students, business and community interests to help save the CSU system by continuing to keep the issue in the forefront with the public and the state Legislature. Recently, the CFA hosted a roundtable discussion at CSU-Sacramento that featured columnist and former gubernatorial candidate Arianna Huffington, State Treasurer Phil Angelides, CFA President Travis and CSU student activist John Kincaid.
"Defeat is not an option and we must make this absolutely clear: There can be no budget cuts to higher education," Huffington told the audience of 150 students and instructors.
"It's amazing that we are able to spend tens of thousands of dollars to incarcerate prisoners, but we are not willing to spend a few thousand to educate our students," she said.
Meanwhile, Angelides is proposing to close corporate tax loopholes to increase state revenues for higher education. He noted that the governor's budget, when combined with current year cuts, would slash CSU funding by $541.2 million (20 percent) over the two-year period.
"These cuts and fee increases not only hurt students and the quality of our colleges, but also damage the long-term economic prosperity of California. CSU graduates are the backbone of our state's workforce, and CSU campuses pump billions of dollars into California's economy each year," said Angelides. "We need to be finding new and inventive ways to prime this economic engine, not proposing short-sighted schemes to cut off its fuel supply."
Dale Martin
