Education in California needs governor’s tax measures to pass

The dreadful months of praying for college acceptances from California State Universities (CSUs) may be a waste of time unless Gov. Jerry Brown’s “millionaire” tax proposal passes in the November election. Without Brown’s tax, the CSUs will turn away as many as 25,000 qualified applicants to combat budget cuts.

Brown’s “millionaire” proposal is a tax aimed at raising income and sales taxes, increasing taxes on the wealthy by 1 to 3 percent to fund education and public safety services, giving both UC schools and CSUs $125 million each. Expiring after four years, it would raise sales taxes by a quarter-cent while raising income taxes for those earning over $250,000, according to The Daily Californian.

If these measures fail, California students will have a lower chance of attending a school in their own state, an ironic and painful outcome.

According to the Los Angeles Times, CSUs and University of California schools have favored out-of-state applicants these past few years in order to create a more diverse student population and also accept the extra income in the form of out-of-state tuition.

Clearly, Brown’s proposal needs to be passed without hesitation in November. It wouldn’t affect the “millionaires” too much, but it would vastly help students who have seen education cut so severely year after year.

If the proposal does not pass in November, the CSUs will lose $200 million and will not receive Brown’s $125 million, resulting in a huge number of cutbacks.

Even worse is that all 23 CSU campuses have also jointly faced budget cuts of $750 million over the past year.

If the tax fails, the CSUs will decrease enrollment by about 25,000 students. Putting a further damper on the topic, the UCs are considering a 6 percent spike in annual tuition in 2013.

Applying to the CSUs may be pointless for some if the admissions rate do in fact drop, according to the Daily Titan. Many colleges, logically, will only choose the best of the best, and those with average grades will lose their spots to 4.0-plus GPA students with innumerable volunteer hours and extracurriculars.

The only other option would be for CSUs to charge more annually. Although the CSUs have a significantly lower annual cost compared to that of private schools, it’s extremely unreasonable because CSU tuition has doubled since 2007, according to the San Francisco Chronicle. Increasing tuition wouldn’t help parents’ wallets, and the debts would follow students for who knows how many years.

The California Aggie says the CSUs are beginning to feel uneasy when it comes to choosing the number of admissions they should accept in 2013. Their administration can only guess at how many students and professors they can afford due to the indecision about the proposal so far.

The possibility of increased annual costs for colleges is bad enough, but deserving students being denied the chance into a college of their own state is unfair. Brown’s proposal has to be passed; otherwise, colleges will be turning away students who have all the qualifications to be accepted.