Universities Weblog

On February 5th, when voters in California go to the polls they'll find a number of ballot initiatives before them. One of them, Proposition 92, could have a profound impact on funding for both public K-12 schools and higher education in the state. And if the ballot initiative itself isn't controversial enough, it comes at a time when California Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger is faced with a mammoth $14 billion budget deficit, in response to which he has proposed deep cuts in education.

Proposition 92 would cut tuition at California's 109 state run community colleges from $20 per credit unit to $15 per credit unit. That would mean that a full time community college student who now pays $600 a year for tuition would only pay $450. The proposition would also limit the state's ability to raise community college tuition in the future. But that's not all the proposition would do…

California already has a funding mechanism in place that requires 40% of general funds to be spent on education. Proposition 92 would change the formula for determining how much money a particular institution gets. Instead of being based on enrollment, the new funding formula would be based on the size of the youth population in an area that could attend a community college - whether they enroll or not. And that seems designed to shift some education funding away from public schools and into community college coffers, because over the coming years, the young adult population is expected to grow in most of the state while K-12 enrollment shrinks.

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