Each of us attending Cal Poly is doing so because we, as individuals, are looking to better our own individual futures. We invest thousands of dollars and hours into our higher education because we truly believe that we will see a worthwhile return on that investment in terms of fulfilling careers and higher salaries. Higher education is a personal choice that yields largely personal benefits, yet at a taxpayer-subsidized public university like ours, the idea of paying more for our own education isn’t always as readily received – even in the midst of a state budget crisis.
The referendum to increase every full-time Cal Poly student’s college based fees to $362 per quarter stems from necessity. For years now, mandates set in place by the California State University system Chancellor’s Office have required Cal Poly to increase its enrollment year after year, yet the CSU’s promise to proportionately increase state funding with enrollment has fallen flat. The result: Cal Poly has a $25 million deficit, less classes and ever-increasing class sizes. The university is now asking the students themselves to submit an advisory vote to President Warren Baker, indicating whether or not we would approve such an increase.
In other words, the question really comes down to how much we value our education, in terms of real dollars. The referendum puts Cal Poly at a crossroads: we can choose to keep Cal Poly where it is now – as the most prestigious university in the CSU system and one of the best public undergraduate universities in the nation – or we can choose to let a budget crisis bring us down. We can choose to pay a small fraction of our potential future incomes more in order to maintain the high standard of education we currently receive – or we can choose to let class sizes increase, lab equipment become outdated, part-time instructors to be laid off and full-time faculty overstretched with teaching more classes than ever before. This vote must be passed out of desperate necessity – we’re in the hole, and there’s no CSU system bailout on the horizon from our deficit-ridden government or alumni.
As the Mustang Daily reported last week, the effects of not passing the fee vary by college, but broadly means less classes, larger class sizes, less funding for labs and new equipment and full-time faculty teaching more classes. The College of Liberal Arts, which currently holds a $1 million deficit, will likely have to lay off part-time faculty and drastically reduce classes offered, meaning minimal opportunities for students to double-major or double-concentrate. The colleges of Engineering, Science and Mathematics, and Agriculture, Food and Environmental Sciences will lack funding to purchase new equipment and properly maintain labs, and may see the remaining curriculum becoming heavily lecture- instead of lab-based. The College of Business will lay off some lecturers, freeze hiring and cut the number of upper- and lower-division classes. And the College of Architecture and Environmental Design could risk losing accreditation, along with being unable to upgrade technology and books.
The bottom line is that Cal Poly has already reached the tipping point. At last night’s State of the Student Address, Cal Poly President Warren Baker said “You can’t expect us to meet your needs if you can’t provide the support.”
Students are being asked to foot the bill for educating themselves, and they should do so.
Compared to other public univerisities, Cal Poly is a bargain of an education – even if the fee increase passes. Consider that Cal Poly’s annual student fees are $5,043. In comparison, UC Berkeley costs $8,932, UC Davis $9,484, UC Irvine $8,775 and UCLA $8,310. Looking at private universities in California reveals even more of a disparity: Stanford costs $36,000, Cal Tech $35,000 and the University of San Diego $39,000.
Graduating seniors who are reluctant to cast a vote should consider too that there is an intrinsic value associated with a Cal Poly degree that is very closely tied to the school’s reputation. Employers won’t think back on what Cal Poly “used to be” back when it had enough funding; they’ll look at the reputation of the school at that time and judge your degree accordingly. Think too of what you’re leaving behind when you graduate here. Do future students deserve the same quality of education you received from this university, or should they settle for a lesser version of Cal Poly?
There are of course larger lessons to be learned here about government bureaucracy and misallocation of resources at the state level. We are, in effect, being asked to pay more to maintain the same level of education we currently have. And if this referendum does pass, university administrators should take it with a very stern warning: We the students are entrusting you with our hard-earned money, and we expect you to spend it wisely. Please, take a stand against the Chancellor’s Office and let them know that Cal Poly will not be pushed around; this referendum’s passage would not be a sanction for them to mandate increasing enrollment even more. That is, after all, one of the biggest reasons we are in the financial trouble we are now in.
Cal Poly needs to spend its money like it’s poor – watching every penny and negotiating as much as possible – because it is. Don’t think that, like other bailouts, our money (if given) will come without some strings attached. There must be more student oversight of how CBFs are distributed, regardless of whether this increase passes. CBF committees were created with the ideology that students would make the majority of the decisions.
The university has said this increase is necessary to keep Cal Poly at its high standards. That may be so, but students should be proactive in determining how their money is spent, from voting on this increase to being on their department’s CBF committee. If it’s our money that saves the university from going in the red, we should have an appropriately larger influence on financial policies.
The decision you are faced with today and tomorrow directly concerns your education and your career. Should you choose to pass this resolution, you, as a student, will make a bold statement, one that tells President Baker that you are willing to invest in Cal Poly because you recognize what a degree from here yields us. Vote yes to increase college based fees; your education is still the best investment for the future you can make, and Cal Poly is still one of the best universities to provide you with that education. Let’s keep it that way.