We'll soon be celebrating two important centennial events in Fresno, and the entire San Joaquin Valley is expected to participate in the festivities honoring the work of two educational institutions.
Fresno City College will turn 100 next year and California State University, Fresno, hits that milestone in 2011. Consider what the region would be like if they weren't part of our fabric.The centennial celebrations will be a time to look back at our history, and reflect on how we are connected to Fresno City College and Fresno State. But it's a good thing we're not looking forward. These are not good times for California's community colleges and universities, and Fresno City College and Fresno State have felt the financial pain very deeply.Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger and the Legislature have been systematically dismantling what was once the greatest public university system in the world. That has caused student fees to rise faster than credit card rates, campuses to close admission to thousands of qualified students and class offerings to be cut to the point that it's taking extra years for students to graduate.No wonder California is falling behind other states. We think education is a luxury, and that it's more important to invest money in prisons than schools. The possibility that the reduction of education funding has a relationship to the need for more prison funding doesn't seem to be on the Legislature's radar.But our policy priorities seem clear, at least as they are expressed by the people we elect to represent us. California's community colleges and the CSU and University of California systems are no longer there to educate bright young minds. They are seen as financial burdens, and the Legislature would be just as happy if these public institutions were private schools.Their budgets are being used to subsidize the unwillingness of lawmakers to get state spending under control over several budget cycles. So the state overspends for years, and then solves the problem by ripping apart the higher education budget.This funding cut didn't just come because of the economic meltdown. Over the past 20 years, state support for CSU and UC has been cut in half. Schwarzenegger and lawmakers are only continuing the pattern of their predecessors.It is foolish, but try to get anyone to listen to that in Sacramento. California became a national leader because we invested in areas that would yield long-lasting results. The money we put into the higher education system had been paid back many times by advances in technology and business, and the taxes paid by productive Californians who earned good salaries because of their educations.We don't put much money into higher education now, somehow thinking that it's wasteful. Lawmakers say our subsidy to the public university systems is still the equivalent to what other states put into their systems. Yes, and that's why they are Mississippi and we are California. Or at least we were the Golden State.But voters also are to blame for our change in priorities. They are tough on crime and weak on education.Now California strives to be mediocre instead of the best.We don't invest in education. We haven't upgraded our water system in decades. We have let our roads and bridges deteriorate.But we build prisons with the best of them, and they are so full that we must build more.As we are about to celebrate the centennials of Fresno City College and Fresno State, wouldn't it be wonderful if we could announce that there will be classroom space for any student who is qualified to attend our public universities? No furlough days for professors. No class sections canceled for budget reasons. No telling qualified students to wait until next year.That would mean we are once again investing in our future.