Saying that proposed budget cuts threaten California’s economic future, leaders of the state’s public college and university systems urged lawmakers Monday to raise taxes rather than close the doors of higher education on its future work force reports the Ventura County Star.
“By 2025, California will be short 3 million prepared workers to be economically viable,” California State University Chancellor Charles Reed said. “What’s going to happen is that those jobs will go somewhere else.”
Reed said the 23-campus CSU system is already accommodating 10,000 more students than it is budgeted for and took action earlier this year that will shut out 10,000 qualified freshmen from entering next year. That action was taken after Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger proposed cutting $386 million from a previously agreed-upon funding formula.
“I couldn’t look students in the face and say, we’re going to admit you but we can’t give you the classes you need,’” Reed said.
Reed and other CSU officials were in Sacramento for the university’s annual lobbying day. He was joined at a news conference by Community College Chancellor Diane Woodruff and University of California Provost Rory Hume.
With the state facing what he called “the mother of all deficits,” Reed said the only workable option for balancing the budget is for Schwarzenegger and lawmakers to use a mix of spending cuts and tax increases.
In May, the governing boards of the UC and CSU systems are expected to enact student fee increases of 7 percent to 10 percent for fall.
Read it here: Raise taxes to fund state universities, officials say