Last week the Cal State University board of trustees passed another tuition increase for students: a 5 percent increase for spring 2011 and a 10 percent increase for next school year.
For next year’s 10 percent increase, the CSU hopes the state Legislature will return to the money to the CSU in next year’s budget. This increase and plea seem all too familiar, but unfortunately, the increase was necessary, which is not at the fault of the trustees but our state legislators and the general voting population.
Yes, according to the CSU website, 50 percent of CSU students receive financial aid and, yes, families that make up to $180,000 annually will receive a new federal tax cut. However, how long will this tax cut last, and more so, what about the money the CSU is hoping the state government will hand over? We tried that last year and it didn’t work as well as we dreamed.
Where are the long-term solutions the CSU and University of California master plans had seemingly put forth from the beginning? Well, California voters and legislators slowly wiped out many of these economic safekeeping measures over the last 40 years.
In 1978, Proposition 13 was voted for by a little more than 60 percent of the voting population, according to the Legislative Analysis Office. Before this piece of slanted legislation, property tax revenue, which reflected the ebb and flow of these values, went straight to K-12 and higher education, among other necessary expenses like fire departments, roads and prisons. Instead, the proposition makes it so property tax is based on the value of the home at 1975 or at time of purchase and caps the amount it can increase.
Among many side effects, such as decreasing the amount of new homeowners, Prop 13 significantly decreased the amount of money funneling into the education systems.
When people disagree with the legislation, like financially elite Warren Buffet, who pays nearly the same property tax on his estate as my mom does on her mobile home that sits on less than 2 acres, then the government needs to start proposing some amendments.
The proposition did make property tax payments more equitable, in that richer districts were starting to see richer schools because of the disproportionate amount that each school was getting, and voters didn’t like the idea of their money getting redistributed to schools their children didn’t attend. However, isn’t there a middle ground between capping or freezing property tax percentages to the volatile system that was in place pre-Prop 13?
Proposition 13 is large contributing factor to why California’s education system is failing among our road and prison systems.
Since its passage, local governments have increasingly been seeking other ways to increase district funding. An example can be seen in this year’s midterm election, where Long Beach voters passed Measure B, the tax on marijuana.
The original idea that we were trying to protect individual districts from receiving inadequate funding compared to their rich neighbors came in a deep backlash, where now every district is fighting for any type of funding that voters might back.
What isn’t happening is the financial education of voters, which the U.S. Financial Literacy Education Commission sites is extremely low. Californians want social programs, such as free K-12 education and largely discounted higher education, without the taxes. One plus one does not equal four.
The pendulum that has become American and Californian politics needs to end in the middle with the swift hand of legislators and a financially literate voting population to prevent the chaos that has become CSU tuition.
Joanne Tucker is a senior anthropology major and a contributing writer for the Daily 49er.
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