Cal State students, faculty protest budget cuts

About 200 students, faculty and labor union activists attended a lunchtime rally at Cal State L.A. on Wednesday, protesting the prospect of more state budget cuts that they said would reduce class offerings and make it harder to graduate. 

Gathering in a plaza near the campus library, the crowd chanted slogans such as "No cuts to the CSU!"  Students and faculty also performed a skit in which the ghost of the late Gov. Edmund G. "Pat" Brown accused his son, Gov. Jerry Brown, of ruining his legacy of supporting higher education in the state.

The rally was one of a number at Cal State campuses across the state Wednesday, in conjunction with protests against education-funding cuts organized by faculty and student groups in Massachusetts, Michigan, Oregon and other states. 

Among those attending Cal State L.A.'s event was engineering major Hugo Perez, 24, of Palmdale, who said the lack of available classes is forcing him to take an extra year to graduate. "We've really got to fight for our education at this point," said Perez, who expects to graduate this spring.

At Cal State Long Beach, several hundred students and faculty gathered at midday in the quad in front of the student union, where they joined a local gospel choir to sing the civil rights standard "We Shall Overcome." 

Some students held signs that read, "We're Poor, Please Restore." 

Donald Bessom, a political science graduate student, energized the crowd with a message to Cal State administrators and state legislators: "The harder you hit us, the louder we get."

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-- Larry Gordon and Carla Rivera

Photo: Judy Olson, a Cal State L.A. faculty member, represents the ghost of Pat Brown during the rally.  Credit: Wally Skalij /Los Angeles Times

Comments

[Prdparent]

This appears to be a good teaching opportunity for kids that are use to having grown-ups pay for everything for them. Time to grow up and pay your fair share, kids- mom & dad and the rest of us taxpayers won't always be carrying your weight.

[kuruc]

hugo perez! yes you have to fight for you education. i did, 82nd and 173rd airborne, 1964-68. then gi bill. csula 1973, ucla 1976 mba.

[AJ]

At today's tuition costs, I doubt there are many students out there that can afford to pay for their education without help

[Slang]

Sorry, guys. The gravy train has run off the tracks. Time to fend for yourselves.

[kyle]

Prdparent, please read the article and use some common sense before posting. Students are protesting cut classes not increased tuition. And by the way, if you are a student at CSU, you are not a kid who's "having grown-ups pay for everthing for them." Most CSU students are low-income or adults continuing their education...duh, that's why the faculty is protesting with them.

[john]

while i feel your pain you may just have to do what i did and work numerous jobs both during the summer and the school year. study hard, get good grades and maybe you can also get a scholarship. if you want to succeed you are going to have to sacrifice; there is no entitlement to free higher education

[Joe Papa]

Well you can thank Gov. Brown for cutting 500 million from the education budget and at the same time his budget calls for 40 million to be used in the higher education of illegals .... simple solution .... claim to be illegal and jerry will pay for everything at taxpayers expense

[truth]

seems like that's all college students do in this state is spend all their time protesting one thing or another, do they ever go to class?

[Michael]

Just like a previous poster said... the gravy train has left the tracks and is over. College students at community, CSU, and UC systems need to compare their tuition to instate tuition in other states. Most, if not all, charge more per credit hour than California does. It is time to pony up money students if you want an education. You can start by working your way through school like people before you.

[Karen]

not only does this protest the budget cuts, but some dont realize that while students are dealing with a large percentage of tuition increase and 40 percent budget cut, the higher administration, dean, and chancellors at CSUs are getting increased salaries every year for the past decade salaries. that is scandalous.

[Zeke]

Too much of the education budget goes to wages, health and pension benefits. If those were lowered the schools could afford to hire more teachers. The teachers and their unions created the problem so I blame them.

[Everyday Guy]

A "political science" major? As there is no science involved, he's studying government.

[Anonymous]

Who cares...it's the CSU system. We all know California's economy is run by the UC/Stanford/Cal-Tech grads. But it's nice to have a cute CSU grad to be the admin assistant.

[Cal State Student]

We don't protest because we have to work for the money to finance our own education. Many students work part-time and even full time to pay for their education.

We protest because the lack of funding to our universities affects the quality of education we receive.

You can give us all the money in the world want but if you can't offer the classes that we need, adequate class sizes, and great professors then students are the one's losing in the bigger picture.

An example of this would be furloughs. Many students still paid to attend classes during the school year but only received a partial education because the universities didn't have enough money to keep themselves open on certain days.

That's just one of the ways the budget situation is affecting Cal State university students.

and yes, I am a student at a Cal State.

[Jim F]

Why don't they protest illegal immigration? 85% are on welfare, attending our free public schools and using our ER's without paying. The money has to come from somewhere. The rest of us are already paying higher taxes to pay for it... looks like the schools are losing funds to provide the necessary classes, and students get to pay higher tuition. Of course, I must be a racist since I don't want to pay for illegals. You college students keep rallying for people coming here illegally and enjoy the additional expenses of extra semesters since classes aren't available.

[james]

it is no wonder California is ranked as one of the dumbest states in the nation. students should be on the door steps of board members, faculty and staff. these are the people who refuse to take major pay cuts, pension cuts or benefit cuts. these are the people who do not care about the students but how they can retire like kings and get free health care etc. this is a college that has hundreds of millions of dollar sitting at some brokerage firm or bank as their fun money. a kitty used for lavish events and perdiems and reimbursements of a bloated infrastructure. its so simple, taxpayers have been there for students, its the college infrastructure and their greed as the reason for the suffering, focus on the right people.

[yessy]

wow... it is incredible the amount of ignorance released by some people.

1) Many of these students already work multiple jobs to pay for school.
2) Fee increases are not the main issue! Fee increases are the issue because we are paying more while faculty, staff, classes, and other resources are being cut. Where is all the money from the fee increases going??? To the pockets of the chancellor and presidents of the schools. and for a bit of information the chancellor of the CSU happens to make more money than the President of the US.
3) Really, you're going to bring up undocumented students into the mix??? They do not receive free education, they don't even receive loans...

and finally to anonymous... having gone to a UC/Stanford/Cal-tech doesn't make you any less ignorant.

[ALAN]

Well you can thank Gov. Brown for cutting 500 million from the education budget and at the same time his budget calls for 40 million to be used in the higher education of illegals .... simple solution .... claim to be illegal and jerry will pay for everything at taxpayers expense

Posted by: Joe Papa | April 13, 2011 at 03:28 PM
hugo perez! yes you have to fight for you education. i did, 82nd and 173rd airborne, 1964-68. then gi bill. csula 1973, ucla 1976 mba.

Posted by: kuruc | April 13, 2011 at 02:15 PM

THESE TWO SAY IT ALL

[Johanna]

To the anonymous person who wrote that, "...California's economy is run by the UC/Stanford/Cal-Tech grads. But it's nice to have a cute CSU grad to be the admin assistant." Wow --- you REALLY have no idea what you're talking about and I feel very sorry for you that you have such a narrow and uneducated point of view. Rude people like yourself are a big problem in our society today --- maybe one day you will learn to be a decent human being and actually contribute something worthwhile to our society as a whole. Until that time...

[Angry Citizen]

End corporate subsidies/welfare.

Tax the rich and privileged (who have high social mobility and are getting richer) instead of riding on the backs of the poor and disadvantaged (who have low social mobility and are getting poorer).

Investment in education = healthier society

[Maxed out]

It's better for colleges to double their tuition than it is for the whole state to go bankrupt. Taxpayers can't afford bigger and bigger property taxes. If you can't afford college, then too bad. There's a recession going on and it's not going to end any time soon.

[Milan Moravec]

Rally against the spend thrift campus chancellors at the University of California: campus chancellors drain resources ment for students and faculty. University of California Berkeley Chancellor Birgeneau & Provost Breslauer Must Go: clean sweep Cal. leadership (The author who has 35 years’ consulting experience, has taught at University of California Berkeley, where he was able to observe the culture & the way senior management work)

Cal. Chancellor’s arrogance and poor judgment: pays ex Michigan governor $300,000 for lectures; recruits out of state $50,000 tuition students that displace qualified Californians; Latino enrollment drops while out of state jumps 2010; tuition to Return on Investment (ROI) drops below top 10; NCAA places basketball program on probation.

Chancellor Birgeneau’s ($500,000 salary) fiscal track record is dismal indeed. He would like to blame the politicians, since they stopped giving him every dollar asked for, & the state legislators do share some responsibility for the financial crisis. But not in the sense he means.

A competent chancellor would have been on top of identifying inefficiencies & then crafting a plan to fix them. Able oversight by the UC Board of Regents and the legislature would have required him to provide data on inefficiencies and on what steps he was taking to solve them during his 8 year reign. Instead, every year Birgeneau would request a budget increase, the timid regents would agree to it, and the legislature would provide. The hard questions were avoided by all concerned, & the problems just piled up to $150 million of inefficiencies….until there was no money left.

It’s not that Birgeneau was unaware that there were, in fact, waste & inefficiencies during his 8 year reign. Faculty & staff raised issues with Birgeneau & Breslauer ($400,000 salary), but when they failed to see relevant action taken, they stopped. Finally, Birgeneau engaged some expensive ($3,000,000) consultants to tell him & the Provost what they should have known as leaders or been able to find out from the bright, engaged people. (Prominent east-coast University accomplishing same at 0 costs)

Cal. has been badly damaged. Good people are loosing their jobs. Cal’s leadership is either incompetent or culpable. Merely cutting out inefficiencies does not have the effect desired. But you never want a crisis to go to waste.

Increasing Cal’s budget is not enough. Take aim at the real source of Cal’s fiscal, & leadership crisis; honorably retire Chancellor Birgeneau & Provost Breslauer.