CA Universities, Raises For College Presidents

I have lived in California for all of my life, minus one year after high school. I know my state is not perfect but there are plenty of advantages to living here. The weather is pretty nice; we have plenty of beautiful parks, landmark cities, easy access to the ocean or mountains, amusement parks and many other things.

Of course California has its drawbacks. Earthquakes aren’t any fun, pollution can really suck, we pay more because so many people want to live here, etc.

The latest thing our leaders in the state university system have done has me not only scratching my head but fuming as well.

Our education system, not just in California, has endured some pretty substantial budget cutbacks over the last few years. Teachers have been laid off, class sizes have grown; even entire classes have been eliminated to try and erase budget shortfalls.

I acknowledge that some very tough decisions needed to be made and these difficult choices were going to upset people; it was unavoidable. What upsets me is what the California State University administrators are doing now; at the same time they are trying to close the holes in the budget.

Given what the communities are witnessing the administrators doing it is difficult to take their voiced concerns seriously.

For a few years now students have had to pay higher class costs as well as more for their books and materials. Factor in these extra costs with fewer classes and students have been baring the brunt of what the University system has decided is the way to get things back on track. A recent announcement from CSU officials is that they are proposing to freeze all admissions. This means that if you want to enroll to a CSU school tough, you can’t. The thought process is that reducing enrollment will help get the budget back under control. To be honest I am a little bit confused by their reasoning. If you don’t allow students to enroll they won’t contribute to the coffers because they aren’t paying for class’s right? Something isn’t right in their thought process on this one.

To further my bafflement they have, in the same breath, approved raises for two CSU Presidents. This would probably be another reason why students have been organizing so many protests recently. Officials keep complaining about the fact they have no money but keep approving raises for the higher ups in their system. Both Presidents, with their new raises, will be making over $300,000 a year plus other perks like housing and car allowances.

I cannot believe how raises are being given out while the students continue to have their costs increased. I have a hard time understanding how this is the best way to address the financial difficulties the schools are experiencing.

No wonder so many people simply cannot pay for an advanced education. Tuition costs continue to climb while what you pay for is not what it used to be, but the administrators keep getting additional financial compensation.

It sounds like our system is broken when we reward the administrators for just showing up while bleeding the students dry when they are just trying to get a college education.

My concerns increase as I see studies noting that student loan debt in this country has eclipsed credit card debt. That is a staggering bit of information. How can we, as a society, hope to see our youth take critical roles in our society when we insist on saddling them with huge amounts of debt right out of the gate. This is something that we shouldn't tolerate.

As a father of two teenage kids, who have both voiced their intentions to go to college after high school, this kind of news really disappoints me. Why are the “experts”, who are running the system, making it so inconvenient for our young adults to get a higher education? I simply do not understand, but it really is a shame and they should be embarrassed whenever they look in a mirror.