Photo Credit: Diana Nguyen's Blackberry. University Room, San Jose State University.
Students and faculty joined Alberto Torrico at San Jose State University for a meet and greet and informational rally today in support of the AB 656 bill.
Torrico, Majority Leader of the California State Assembly, created the AB 656 bill and its goal is to get 100,000 people to support the bill in just 100 days. The AB 656 bill plans to create the California Higher Education Fund with funds from a new 9.9 percent oil and natural severance tax. This tax is expected to raise over $1 billion in revenue for higher public education in the state of California.
“All students should be given the right to higher education,” Torrico said, “and if we show that enough students want to see change, we can make this bill happen and Sacramento will be obligated to put money back to where it belongs, in our schools.”
The funds would be administered by the California Higher Education Endowment Corporation, which is created by this bill, that will annually allocated the revenue to the three college systems based on the following formula: 60 percent to California State University systems, 30 percent to University of California systems, and 10 percent to California Community Colleges.
The proposed bill is a response to increases in tuition, faculty furloughs, and fewer faculty and classes available caused by inadequate funding due to the current economic downturn.
Roberta Ahlquist, professor of secondary education at San Jose State, recently attended a union meeting and found out that some college campuses are already cutting programs that include foreign language, music, and the arts.
“I think they are brutal and devastating, and an attack on the master plan,” Ahlquist said.
The 1960 Master Plan for Higher Education established the University of California and California State University system with the goal to admit and offer a place to every California high school student who is eligible. With the current recession, this plan does not seem achievable.
The AB 656 bill passed in the Assembly Higher Education Committee in July 2009 and plans to go through a hearing with the Assembly Revenue and Taxation Committee in January 2010.
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