Educate me, please

       Transfer student orientation at San Francisco State was a total buzz kill. All the preemptive excitement of finally transferring to the big leagues from a modest city college vanished. The eight pre-registration units we had been promised were no longer available, due to cuts. The class schedule was still unknown, due to cuts. Within my program department, further ills, due to cuts.

Every piece of available information seemed to contradict itself. They stressed the point of not exceeding 120 units, although countless classes were no longer offered. They joked seriously about handing Spring 2009 graduates diplomas because they had exceeded the unit cap, regardless of desired goals or achievement. Welcome to San Francisco State kids, good luck, now please leave.

I left orientation feeling far from thrilled.

And then came the harsh reality of university furloughs. Unlike the days of high school, I truly want to be here. I pay to be here. Eliminating school days and cutting faculty pay are inevitably leading to poorer quality of education and frustrated students and teachers. I am beginning to understand why some students spend such exorbitant prices on their educations: so that when the state budget goes awry, they don’t have to hold their breath and wait to have something taken away.

In these economically trying times, state-funded institutions of higher education are all facing the same sad reality. Whether you’re a student at one of California’s 112 community colleges, 23 California State Universities, or 10 University of California campuses, buckle up ‘cause you’re in for a ride.

 “I couldn’t get into any of the classes that I needed. I think I’m going to have to take summer school. It’s annoying,” said SFSU student Abby Viselman. Annoying, to say the very least.

There are approximately 450,000 students and 46,000 employed faculty members in the CSU system. According to its website, it is currently facing a “$564 million budget deficit for 2009-2010,” these are big numbers folks, and to remedy the astronomic financial boo-boo, we all lose. Fewer students will be admitted and the ones currently attending will face a fee hike. “Overall, CSU is looking to reduce its enrollment by 40,000 students system wide for 2010-2011.”

Our dedicated professors and faculty members are being hit with a 9.23 percent pay cut. Dedication to education has got to get tough when things go this far south.

All areas of student life are affected. Quality of physical and emotional student healthcare has plunged. “It’s like there’s no time to teach,” said SFSU student health educator Albert J. Angelo. “This is not what it’s supposed to be like. Education is the only service where we as humans are okay getting ripped off. We see it as a paper thing, once I get my degree I’ll get a job.”

But this is obviously not so. Economic woe spreads far and nationwide.

So who’s to blame? Good question. I think Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger deserves credit. After all he is responsible for “fixing” the mess. He originally proposed a $410 million reduction to the CSU system alone. We now find cuts to the UC and CSU funding combined to be “just under $2 billion total,” states the governor’s budget. Rather than reducing other state spending such as prison funding, or raising taxes, he chooses to lower the educational standard.

And what is there to do? How can we, as students and teachers, protest this horrendous blow to the system we rely so heavily upon? One answer is “walk outs,” in which multiple campuses have already partaken. The International Students for Social Equality led a walk out at UC Berkeley and other campuses on September 24, in protest. SFSU and SF City College joined in solidarity.

Does this sort of activism even help? Leaving class in turn means one less day of school. “It seems like protesting cutting school days by taking another day off school doesn’t really help to solve the problem,” said UC Berkeley student Gracie Martin.

So what then? The Associated Students, Inc. of SF State is taking some noteworthy steps to deal with this problem. Recently they have led school rallies to protest the budget cuts. Rather than walking out, they are staying and sharing their strife, collectively, loud and clear.

An ultimate solution is hard to pin point, but as with most problems this immense, it’s all about taking baby steps in the right direction. Most importantly we must always stand up for what we believe and against what we do not.