The California State Student Association (CSSA) launched a new campaign called “California is Made in the CSU.”
CSSA started the campaign early in March to educate the voting public about the value of California state universities, executive director Miles Nevin said.
“We need the public support to help convince the legislator that the CSU should be a priority during the budget votes,” he said. “The legislator needs to fully fund the needs of each education system.”
The state has its general fund and higher education is a part of it, said Jacob Alvarez, vice president of university affairs. The poor economy caused the budget to be cut a lot.
“CSU is the largest higher education system in the world,” he said. “It’s important because it’s accessible and has a low cost but high quality of education.”
Fully funded would mean to increase funding to the CSU system and restore some of the cuts that have taken place, said Steve Dixon, CSSA president.
“The legislator thinks that CSU are a cost that need to be cut,” he said. “Our goal is to educate the public and the legislator that students are an investment and result in teachers, nurses and engineers.”
The campaign wants to put forward the message that students are important, he said.
“We want to be at the top of the minds of voters,” he said. “State parks was ahead of higher education in priorities.”
The campaign promotes that the economy, jobs and workforce are made in the CSU.
“CSU is a producer of the workforce in California, graduating 90,000 students each year,” Nevin said. “$1 invested in the CSU returns $4.62 to the economy.”
The statistic came from the Legislative Analyst Office and the CSU, Dixon said.
If the legislator supports the CSU system, the overall quality of eduction would increase, Alvarez said.
“We would like to see a lot of state financial support and lower fees for students,” he said. “More people would be able to get a university degree. The costs now are widening the gap of who can go to college.”
A simple way for student to become involved is to go the the Web site and enter the pledge, he said. Someone can also testify on the Web site for reasons why the CSU is important.
“Students who want to be more active can educate themselves with Associated Students Inc.” he said.
Students can be very powerful in influencing the legislator if they show up and vote, Dixon said.
“There are 430,000 students in CSU,” he said. “If you add community colleges and UC, it’s 3.7 million voters. With parents it’s a multiplying effect making 6 or 7 million; that’s a lot of voters. ”
Dixon said the CSSA would send a pledge to the legislators and then post who signed it online, showing voters which legislators support higher education in the primary election in June, but more importantly, in the general election in November, he said.
“One-third of the seats are being voted for as well as the governorship,” he said.