One week after being sworn in as California’s governor,
Jerry Brown revealed a budget plan that will cut $1 billion from California’s
university system and $400 million in cuts to community colleges, making it
even harder for working and poor students to achieve their hopes of a higher
education. Brown is simply continuing the bi-partisan assault on social
services. The cuts will result in
privatizing universities, a situation in which students will be contributing
more to their education than the state.
This move goes against the 1960 California Master Plan for
Higher Education that set up a system in which “exceptional and broad access”
to higher education was available to students along with the principle, since
abandoned, of tuition-free education for residents of California. Students have
gone from paying next to nothing for an education to nearly $30,000 a year at
University of California campuses and over $15,000 at California State
Universities. Under the new plan community college tuition will go from $26 to
$36 per unit. Community colleges that have historically served working-class
students with affordable education and technical education are becoming
increasingly unaffordable.
Not only is the plan making it more difficult to pay for
college, but it will also cause faculty and staff layoffs, resulting in fewer
courses offered leading to more crowded classes, and thousands of students
turned away who would have previously been accepted to universities and
colleges. These students are being thrown into the job market in the era of the
mysterious “jobless” recovery.
Students and teachers who are directly affected by this must
stand up to such an open and direct attack, by organizing and fighting back.
The Party for Socialism and Liberation will join in organizing a fight-back
movement that will demand the right to education.
