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Photo by bluemodern via Flickr
Photo by bluemodern via Flickr During yesterday's California State University system's special Board of Trustees meeting, Chancellor Charles B. Reed said he will seek approval for "an additional student fee hike of 15% to 20% for this fall, and enrollment reductions of 32,000 students in the year to follow," reports the LA Times.The meeting was held as a result of the need for the system to face the projected $584 million budget shortfall courtesy the state of California, and provided a forum for discussing further increases and cut backs that will be added on to those previously agreed upon, like the 10% fee increase approved just this May. "Reed said the university system [...] was running out of time and options," with many of the campuses starting their academic year next month.
But faculty and staff from the CSU schools don't agree with not only the state-level cuts, but the manner in which those in charge of the CSU are dealing with them, namely Reed himself:
Reed said much of the fee hike will be covered by financial aid increases and education tax breaks promised by the Obama administration, but several professors called that assertion "ludicrous."
"What this means is dreams deferred, poverty entrenched and the door to the middle class slammed firmly on poor and working-class people," said Rita Ledesma, a professor at Cal State L.A.
In addition to costs going up for students and caps on enrollment for both incoming freshmen and transfer students, those employed by the CSU face losses in the form of layoffs--provided the union doesn't agree to "a university-wide, two-day-a-month furlough plan designed to eliminate $275 million of the $584-million budget gap."
Fentanyl and other drugs fuel record deaths among people experiencing homelessness in L.A. County. From 2019 to 2021, deaths jumped 70% to more than 2,200 in a single year.
