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U.C. WAKE UP CALL: How Scale and Action Can Save the U.C. and Maybe the Rest of Higher Education in California

I love California, and I love the University of California. I am saddened by the recent financial problems the state and the entire education system faces. But I am more upset by what seems to be a failure of the education system: people who think 60s style protests are useful and wise responses to problems they helped create.

Sit-ins, threats, throwing food at Regents, and chants of the “What do we want? X! When do we want it? Now!” ilk remind me of a five year old throwing a tantrum; not intelligent people trying to change the system and take responsibility for their role in the problem. When I was at Berkeley, a professor noted that protesting the first Iraq war (especially in the Bay Area) was not as effective as the same thousands of people writing to Congress members and being clear where their donations and votes would go in the future. The same applies to the education funding problem.

Instead of putting all that great activist energy to campaigning for funding education, Californians have coasted on a system that cannot work without incredible growth. Californians cling to a broken property tax system, fail to push for better education funding, and back spending a billion dollars on prisons. Shame on us.

U.C. Berkeley’s alumni association sent me an email claiming close to 500,000 living alumni. That is but one campus in a system of 10 campuses. Now, add in the numbers of Californians who attend or graduated from the CalState and Community College system. Given the graduates, the current employees, and students at all the higher education campuses, there ought to be a focused, powerful political group that could move the state towards fixing its education funding problems. Rather than doing so, many of these folks waited until the state had no money and in a sense no choice about what to do to address the shortfall. The Regents and the students are finally joining together to voice their views in Sacramento. This type of action should have happened in the first place.

And, there is more to do. We need to start giving money to our respective campuses. I have more to say on this point. But in case you want to give now, here is the link to give to Cal. Here is a jump page with links to give to other U.C. campuses. Here is the link for giving to the CalState system. Here is the link to give to California’s Community College system.

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