An article yesterday in Education Week reported that the proposed cuts in the California education budget will affect both K-12 and college students in terms of not only concrete resources, but access:
With some states needing to slash billions of dollars from their budgets this fiscal year—and fiscal 2009 not looking much brighter—K-12 isn’t the only area of education targeted for spending cuts.
Higher education, which also accounts for a large percentage of discretionary spending in state budgets, is feeling the effects of the slow revenue growth, too. Consequently, tuition and fees at public colleges and universities are likely to continue going up, and state scholarship programs might get more competitive. All this is worrisome news for high school students, their parents, and school counselors.
Questions for discussion:
- Do the proposed budget cuts to education block your path to applying to/transferring to/finishing college? Why or why not?
- Can you already see the effects of the budget cuts in your high school, college, or university? If so, describe what you observe. If you don’t sense any changes yet, which resources do you think will be affected first? Why?
Leave comments below.
Youth Radio Los Angeles 
This is what YRLA Peer Teacher Anne Santos had to say on her blog:
The budget cuts have already affected me. I was applying for CSULA and thought i was just on time, but it turns out they pushed up the due date. My aunt gave me this article where it said that the reason for the pushed due date was because of the budget cuts.
I’m not exactly sure what’s going to happen, but I’m pretty sure the cuts will bump up prices at school and all the other stuff. That sucks.
Check out more of Anne’s musings at A Quiet Rockstar’s Blog.
The budget cuts have become of the main reason why I’m constantly experiencing headaches. When I graduated high school I made the decision to not go straight into a UC because it’s too expensive so community college was my answer. Now I’m in my second year at a JC and I’m already thinking about dropping out because its getting to expensive for me to handle. I’m the one who is putting myself through college which means I can’t help my struggling parents keep up to date with their bills.Which has me thinking about putting my dreams on hold in order to make sure we still have a roof underneath us. Its sad to see how this system is not helping minorities and low income people achieve and progress in this country. Now I question whether this country really is “The Land of opportunities”
Anne and Denise, you’ve both hit home that the cuts in the California education budget are impeding your route to college.
Recent news suggests this issue goes beyond state borders. Nationally, the rate of increasing college costs has been outstripping the rate of inflation since at least last year.
What’s more, it turns out that the lending organizations issuing private student loans are in trouble. Just this Monday, the largest non-profit guarantor of private education loans, Education Resources Institute Inc., filed for bankruptcy. Effectively a reverberation of the home mortgage crisis, this news points to a student loan emergency.
In fact, things have reached such a head that, today, the House of Representatives education committee approved a bill that would help keep federal educational funds in circulation and accessible to students and their families.
What are your thoughts about these financial trends and the efforts of the federal government to address them?