California State Universities are a luxury. They provide a higher education at a lower price then well-placed and prominent private universities in the state.
Until recently, the Cal State system was the envy of elite institutions, offering a wide range of courses, emphasizing theory and practice for enrollees who wanted to do more than just thinking about what they were learning in class.
I earned my teaching credential at Cal State Long Beach, a well-respected institution which prepared a number of graduate students for the teaching profession. Unfortunately, I found the training in my classes was heavy on theories and ideas, with very little training on classroom management. Also, my instructors never prepared me for the political and social problems which would are affecting our schools and limiting our students' learning.
Still, Cal State Long Beach possessed an admirable library system, and the majority of faculty members were helpful, if not entirely knowledgeable of the ways of the real world.
The opportunities which I enjoyed nearly a decade ago have been slowly vanishing away. Over the past decade, the Cal State system has hemorrhaged beneath crippling budget cuts, forcing students to pay higher tuition while offering fewer courses. Students have been forced to prolong their state in higher education just to pass the adequate number of classes. The inexpensive higher education is slowing growing out of reach.
Understandably, students across the Cal State system are frustrated by these developments. Economic scarcity was not in the forecast for high school counselors when they were preparing high school students for college. Still, despite the diminishing return of a college education, high schools are still pushing college enrollment as the salvo that will guarantee young people a solid job and a higher quality of life.
No wonder so many disillusioned youth are storming the public square on their campuses. Some of them, I am sure, feel that they were sold a bill of good. They face a growing debt in the face of declining returns on their educational investment. For many students, four years in a post-secondary institution has turned into four more years of high school: avoiding responsibilities., not paying any bills, getting by on someone else's charity.
In college, the coursework is hardly rigorous. Some courses are "Mickey Mouse" classes, which enable students to earn credits toward graduation without really learning anything. The more rigorous coursework remains out of most students' intellectual reach, as many of them received a barely adequate education from their local high schools.
Of course, the budget cuts, the limit in course offerings, the dwindling number of available faculty members, have all frustrated students' chances for learning something consistent and meaningful.
Finding fewer options for stopping the loss of revenue, students and staff have turned their attention to the top-tier administrators in their local campuses and in the Cal State University Central Offices. While students are losing course options and paying increased tuition, chancellors and directors are receiving higher salaries. Most students are outraged that high-level bureaucrats are getting more money, while schools, staffing, and supplies are getting less. However, in contrast to the rising number of students seeking enrollment in Cal State Universities, the higher ranking staff in the system are having a harder time finding willing administrators to take on the politically challenging task of running a complex university system beset with growing demands and less revenue to work with. No matter what course of action future chancellors may take, they are certain to be criticized, demonized, and forced to endure ongoing uncertainties. In the face of growing political challenges and fiscal crises, both of which the state governments have refused to resolve adequately, high ranking university administrators find fewer reasons for investing themselves in a system of organization which grows strained and dysfunctional with every passing year.
The matter of post-secondary governance in education is a matter of attracting qualified talent. Cutting the salaries of a selected number of administrators will not ensure that the several campuses throughout the state will enjoy even a fractional increase in their available revenue.