As part of his gubernatorial campaign, Democratic hopeful Phil Angelides promised to reduce tuition costs to what they were before Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger took office. And by many accounts, this staple of Angelides’ campaign speeches is largely falling on deaf ears.
For one, it doesn’t take a bloodhound to sniff out the fact that funding for higher education was in trouble long before Schwarzenegger even took office: Tuition soared 40 percent during former Gov.Gray Davis’ final two years.
And, thanks in part to Schwarzenegger’s superbly timed tuition-rate freeze for 2006-07, Californians have have been insulated from fee increases over the past year. The fee buyout, in essence, has neutralized tuition as a campaign issue, which is almost guaranteed to weaken Angelides’ current bid.
Regardless of the political windfall Schwarzenegger will get from his tuition freeze, the buyout — and any similarly unfunded program in the future — merely delays the inevitable. Once the lock on fees ends, students will still be stuck in the same hole they were in two years ago.
The state must maintain a predictable fee schedule for its colleges and universities, so families with limited means can accurately plan their budgets. This means fighting the urge to give handouts to university students (and their fee-paying parents) when it is politically beneficial.
It’s admirable that Angelides, a vocal critic of Schwarzenegger’s 2004 cuts to university budgets, has a means to fund his new measures, proposing to close tax loopholes and raise taxes for the wealthiest Californians. But with college fees out of mind for most families, Angelides may find his proposals won’t earn him nearly as many votes as they should.