NEW: Download this complaint form and submit to your instructor ComplaintForm_v2.pdf

 All,

The state legislature (comprised of the people elected to serve you) has cut the CSU budget by $584,000,000.  This is a lot of money.  It amounts to just over 20% of the university’s total state funded budget.  As a result:

1)    Classes will be cut, making it more difficult, in some cases impossible, for you to receive the courses you need to graduate on time.

2)    Your student fees will increase.

3)    The size of your classes will likely increase.

4)    Some faculty and staff will lose their jobs.

5)    And the remaining faculty and staff will be paid about 10% less as a result of furloughs. 

The increases in your fees are expected to raise about $157,000,000 and the furloughs are expected to contribute about $275,000,000[1], for a total of $432,000,000.  As you can see, this still leaves a funding gap of $152,000,000; this gap will inevitably have to be closed by reduced access to a CSU education, and by a reduction in the services that the university will be able to provide to you.

Moreover, for the next academic year, funding cuts of at least an additional 10% are looming.  And the federal economic stimulus money that has been made available for increased financial aid, lessening the impact of the fee increases for some of you, will run out, thus exposing you to the full brunt of the current (and future) fee increases.

There are perfectly reasonable revenue streams the state could take advantage of to prevent this.  For example, a 9.9% tax on companies pumping oil out of California would raise $855,000,000, more than enough to cover the cuts to the CSU system.[2]  Most oil producing states in the country (including Texas!) have such a tax for oil companies; California does not.  Or, increasing the existing tax on alcohol, by a mere 5 cents per drink, would raise $585,000,000, again covering the cut to your education system.[3]  But the state legislature refuses to consider these revenue options; and the SJSU Board of Trustees has so far failed to endorse such funding proposals, “saying they needed more time to study the legislation”.[4] So our state legislature has chosen, instead, to reduce funding for the CSU, resulting in fewer courses, a reduction in pay for faculty and staff, and a fee increase for students. The CSU generates $4 of economic activity for every $1 spent so the impact will ripple throughout the entire state and put us even deeper in recession.

As a result, the quality of your education will suffer.  You may have to spend an extra semester, even an extra year in college before you can get into all the courses you need to graduate, all the while paying higher and higher fees.

So why doesn’t the legislature take advantage of these revenue streams to prevent this?  Because there is a group of anti-government legislators in Sacramento that refuses to raise new revenue under any circumstance, even if that means increasing your student fees, cutting your classes, making it harder for you to get a college degree, and doing lasting damage to your university system.

These legislators find it acceptable to impose an almost 30% stealth tax on tuition and a 10% stealth tax on faculty and staff wages because they do not have to vote for it – they can simply do nothing. You already know what this fee hike means for you and your families. If you take a moment to calculate what a 10% reduction in your own monthly wages would look like, I think you will understand what this means to those of us who serve you at SJSU. Bottom line is that you are paying 30% more for 10% less.

You are at their mercy, unless you fight back. If this situation makes you angry—and it should—then you need to take action.  In a democratic society, our elected representatives work for us.  Now is the time to push for meaningful structural change in California to make sure we protect the quality of education you’ve come to expect from one of the great university systems in the world.  The power for change is in you hands.  You must push the legislature to raise new forms of revenue and dedicate that revenue to the CSU, or your university system and the quality of the degree you receive from it will be irrevocably harmed.

CONTACT INFORMATION:

To find state legislators’ contact information, go to http://www.leginfo.ca.gov/yourleg.html

Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger

State Capitol Building

Sacramento, CA 95814

Phone: 916-445-2841

Fax: 916-558-3160

To email Governor Schwarzenegger –  http://gov.ca.gov/interact

Dr. Charles B. Reed , Chancellor

California State University

401 Golden Shore, Rm. 641

Long Beach, CA 90802

Phone: (562) 951-4700

Fax: (562) 951-4986

For CSU Board of Trustees contact information, go to http://www.calstate.edu/bot/addresslist.shtml