Schwarzenegger’s been buttering up the Democrats for five and a half years now. He quickly shed the ‘governator’ stigma with a solid bipartisan stance, playing the immigrant card, sidestepping touchy church-charged issues like gay marriage and abortion and turning to the true-blue Kennedy candy on his arm when the going got rough.
Then came the budget crisis. Then, somehow, it got worse. To the horror of all Californians not filthy rich or already packing their bags for Canada, the speedo-ed elephant at Schwazenegger’s core ‘mdash; in the face of a gaping deficit that would bring out the worst in any politician ‘mdash; is finally rearing its ugly head.
This is when Democrats start kicking themselves for voting Republican. Not that Cruz Bustamante would be able to blunder his way out of this disaster very gracefully either, but we could guess he might have avoided zapping the entire welfare program and killing one generation’s dreams for a college education in one fell swoop ‘mdash; even if it took a little begging on the White House lawn or some hardcore taxing of the upper echelon.
The latest budget-fix brainstorm from Schwarzenegger’s ogre-ish noggin is the most terrifying threat to in-state higher education we’ve seen in our two-decade-odd lifetimes. According to his latest budget proposal, he wants to completely phase out the Cal Grant program, which currently provides over $800 million to upward of 80,000 students every year, for all new university students ‘mdash; and cap the maximum awards for all those who currently receive them, regardless of rising tuition.
UC President Mark G. Yudof and the UC Board of Regents defended their recent tuition hike by pointing to the almighty Blue and Gold Opportunity Plan, which the university passed in February to ensure no family with an annual income under $60,000 would have to pay a dime toward their childrens’ student fees. However, there seems to be a small crack in communication between state legislators and California’s finest public-university system, because according to UC spokesman Ricardo Vazquez, the Blue and Gold Opportunity Plan may not survive when weighted with the added funding void that would result from the elimination of the Cal Grant. So much for that.
California has long boasted one of the most enviable public-university systems in the country: attractive, highly competitive and ‘mdash; best of all ‘mdash; affordable. But it doesn’t matter how sexy a proximity UCSD has to Black’s Beach or how hot it is for science; if it takes private-school prices to pay for the meager skeleton of academics and student services we’ll retain after the latest round of budget cuts, the Triton statue is going to be one lonely old soul come 2010, no matter how hard he blows on the wrong end of his conch.
Sure, the Cal Grant cut would save a projected $173 million next year, and $450 the next, and even more the next. But when dwarfed next to the $24 billion deficit Schwarzenegger is all but pulling teeth to fill, the snipping of all university lifelines feeding into the white-collar workforce doesn’t seem worth the decades of hurt we’ll be paying for hardly a pebble off the debt pile.
There’s no saying what could happen without Cal Grants; at this point in projections, anyone who knows anything is pissing himself. Let’s see ‘mdash; enrollment would plummet. The newly burdened student-loan system would throw the state’s wounded economy even further into the red. When coupled with monster funding scoops from education and virtually every health-care
program currently keeping the lower middle class from third worldom, the future of California would start to look an awful lot like Armageddon.
If we sat tight and looked into, ahem, alternative government enterprises, or perhaps stopped throwing wads of cash into a failing prison system, the economy might have a sliver of a chance for survival.
But in order to cultivate the cut-throat workforce a full recovery would require ‘mdash; not to mention employees that could afford housing in any of the sunshine state’s ridiculously priced urban centers ‘mdash; there is one facet of society that must be maintained at all costs: higher education.
Feel lucky you slipped into the system before the conservatives whipped out the big guns, because that satisfaction won’t last long. When it comes time to survey the damage, we’ll all be feeling the burn.