You better get yourself a job, because if Proposition 30 fails on Nov. 6, chances are there won’t be enough room in Fresno City College for all of us.
Students are notoriously apathetic when it comes to voting; however, this election year is the most important one you’ve ever witnessed in your life. Aside from the presidential election, the California education system is depending on Proposition 30 to pass if it is to continue to function as we know it.
In the past few years, billions of dollars have been cut from educational funding to help the sinking state economy. Fewer seats are offered in classes; fewer class sections are available; fewer university acceptance letters are issued, and academic programs are swept away.
Finally we have a chance to stop it, or at least slow down the depletion.
Proposition 30 aims to divert more funds to California education. The majority of funds will go to K-12 education, but substantial funds will go to higher education, and it will prevent trigger cuts that could cripple the college system, and more specifically, the community college system in California.
The trigger cuts are already set in the law to balance the budget one way or another. If Proposition 30 fails, $308 million will get automatically cut from California education.
Fresno City College will be impacted drastically.
Vice President of Administrative Services, Sheryl Sullivan said, “It is about 40” classes that will be cut from Fresno City College if Proposition 30 does not pass.
Some say that number is higher.
“We are preparing for a workload reduction which translates into FTES,” said Interim Vice President of Instruction Kelly Fowler. “For our college, we are looking at approximately fifty to sixty sections that may be impacted if the proposition fails.”
Which classes? Which Programs? We don’t know yet. Things are so bad that the State Center of Community Colleges District, your district, is not releasing a class schedule for spring semester until after the Nov. 6 election.
Students with priority registration begin spring registration on Nov. 8. That means they have two days to plan out five months of their lives.
Hundreds of students, including several here in the Rampage, are expecting spring semester to be their last at FCC before graduating. If Proposition 30 fails, many of us won’t be able to get the classes we need to finish, and we may be stuck here for another semester or more.
This could cause some students to become discouraged and not continue their education further. It could also cause a drain on class availability if people retake classes they’ve already passed, or take classes they don’t need just to pass the time.
Will taxes go up with Proposition 30? Yes. Will it affect you? No, not really.
Taxes will only be raised on people who make more than $250,000 and above. As a student, most could assume that isn’t you. Sales tax, however, will increase as well. In fact, it will increase a whole one-quarter of a cent. That’s right, one-fourth of a penny on taxable goods. So basically, everything in California except food will see an extra quarter cent per dollar increase.
In return for these taxes, California education will get $6 billion annually.
It’s a temporary increase to help education stay afloat. The idea is, by the time Proposition 30 expires, it is assumed that the economy will have recovered, and education can stand on its own two feet again.
What do we have to gain? Just the knowledge that no more classes will be cut, and the CSU and UC systems can be free to enroll new students looking to transfer; tuition won’t increase any more than it already has. In fact, current full-time CSU students will receive almost $500 back for paying the increased tuition for the fall semester.
In the end, it would seem like an easy “Yes” vote, but since students are not the most involved voters in America, we run the risk of the rich people who will be taxed and non-students who might not care at all, casting the vote for you.
If you don’t vote ”Yes” on Proposition 30, you just might regret it.
