Cali folk: The Terminator is terminating our educations...

[a_random_joel]

I just found out Schwarzenegger has raised tuition costs for the second semester in a row,

Last Spring, tuition increased from $11 to $18 PER UNIT.
Now for Fall, tuition is going from $18 to $26 per unit!

That is more than double in less than a year!!!

In addition, they have reduced enrollments at the state school level(UC and CSU), and even at my community college they have drastically cut back the class schedule, which hurts a full time worker like me, because I can only go at night, and that's where many of the cuts have come from.

What really sucks about the situation is that Schwarzenegger was supposed to be for lowering taxes and costs. But I guess it is easy to raise taxes on a constituency(students) that is fairly apathetic and doesn't vote as much as others...

This sucks. Meanwhile he continues to make stupid jokes about his movies. Guess we should remind him who the real star of "TOTAL RECALL" was!

[Ignis]

1. Those increases don't sound like much, right?

But please remember that these are the tuition fees for community colleges, which in California are heavily populated by older students, low-income workers trying to better themselves, re-entry students, commuters, and immigrants. Any increase in the fees of these institutions is a direct assault upon the chances of the poor, the women, and those with less-than-lily-white skin in California to live a better life.

The fact is that lower education budgets classes means exactly what a_random_joel mentions: Fewer classes, larger class sizes, fewer elective classes, fewer art classes, and a dramatic drop in the number of classes offered outside normal business hours.

If you live in CA, please take a moment and send word to the Gropinator's office that this is exactly the wrong thing to do to California's economy--both for the present and for the future.

/soapbox off

[a_random_joel]

3. That is exactly right.

I am a middle class full-time worker trying to better myself. There are plenty of similar or lower-wage students in the classes I take who will be hard hit by this.

[SemperEadem]

2. You misunderstood--those lowered taxes and costs were for rich people

who helped to fund his campaign, not for leeches on the system like those enrolled in state universities. (/sarcasm)

[CBHagman]

4. Get this mentioned in the press more.

I only found out about this because Harold Meyerson had a column in The Washington Post about the fact that after the recent tuition hikes (I think they were 40 percent last time out), Schwarzenegger bypassed the state legislature and privately arranged the hikes with university officials -- this after vague promises of future help.

If I ever glimpse Schwarzenegger in this town, I am going to unleash a torrent of German profanity on him that I have been saving up since 1982.

Anyway, the press's attention to Schwarzenegger has been utterly fawning, and there are calls to change the Constitution so that this giant Misthaufen can run for president. There are lots of talented, wise and intelligent immigrants, but Schwarzenegger isn't one of them.

This is part of the problem with the press in this country. This guy basically buys himself a third career after his movie days are more or less behind him, gang-rapes the little people, and gets all kinds of praise for it. Come on! He's just another selfish rich guy who will cover his own rear end and run for it when the bills come due.

We need to get the real story out. The public is lulled into believing Schwarzenegger's phoney story that he's really an American success. Paul Wellstone was an American success. My immigrant grandfather was an American success. Schwarzenegger doesn't even deserve to be mentioned in the same breath with them.