Geeky Weekly

2008 Primary Election: Proposition 92

PROP 92: COMMUNITY COLLEGES. FUNDING. GOVERNANCE. FEES. INITIATIVE CONSTITUTIONAL AMENDMENT AND STATUTE.

Before I start talking about the proposition I'll get my feelings about Community College out in the open; CC is really just grades 13 and 14.  In fact the state recognizes this by lumping CC together with K-12 in what it calls "K-14". The folks running things at California Community Colleges think they can do a better job if their little proposition passes. Lets see what exactly it does:

• Set fees to $15 per unit
• Need a 2/3 vote in both houses to increase fees
• Shift funding increases from K-12 to CC as young adult population increases (minimum 40% of state revenue for K-14 still in effect)
• Limits annual fee increases to the lower of 10% or percentage change of annual personal income (historical average of 4%)
• Fee increases rounded down to the nearest dollar
• Increases size of Board of Governors by 2 to 19
• Transfers financial oversight from the Governor to the BOG (including executive officer compensation and administrative expenses)

Now for some miscellaneous facts to put the current situation into perspective:

• 2.5 million students at 109 schools in 72 districts
• $8 billion spent annually on CC (2/3 from General Fund, 1/3 from fees and federal funding)
• Student fees totaled about $285 million in 2007
• Fees waived for 1/4 of students because of income

Do a little math magic and you get 3%, that's roughly how much a CC student's fee covers the cost of their education. So where does that other 97% come from? Your pocket through federal or state income taxes. And the big kicker is, even if the house wanted to increase fees it would remain at $15 practically forever because of the rounding down to the nearest dollar (there would have to be a 7% annual income increase which I don't think has ever happened).

While I was in school I took a few classes at Cerritos to get some GEs out of the way and seriously it might as well just be free (like it was before 1986). For about the same price as a semester parking permit at CSULB I took 2 classes over the summer. If a student doesn't qualify for the fee waiver, they shouldn't have any problem paying their 3%. Here's a novel idea: get rid of student fees and eliminate all the spending required to support financial aid programs, payment processing and the like. I might be completely wrong, but knowing government efficiency the cost of physically accepting fees is probably more than the fees being collected.

So back to the proposition. Is a $5 cut in student fees needed? No. Is reducing the accountability of a government bureaucracy spending tax payer money a good idea? No. Do we need to amend our state constitution to further burden tax payers? No.

Prop. 92 - No

Tagged with: california, election
Posted under: Political Stuff