California: Sacramento teacher of the year laid off

Michelle Apperson who teaches the sixth grade in Sacramento was laid off in spite of being named Teacher of the year. In her bio she notes:"My favorite teachers growing up were the ones who challenged me to go out of my comfort level a little bit, strive for the stars, and work hard,"

Apperson was laid off as part of a massive budget cut. Many areas in the U.S. are facing similar cuts. Although Apperson said that the layoff hurt her on a personal level she realizes that given the budget situation she understands why it has happened.

Apperson received her pink slip just days after President Obama urged lawmakers to help out states that are facing a crisis in education funding. The Sacramento Unified School District has suffered about 143 million in budget cuts recently. State law mandates layoff based on seniority. For more see this article.

California public universities more expensive than Harvard

According to this article in the Huffington Post it is quite a bit cheaper to attend Harvard or Yale the big Ivy League schools than to attend a public university in California.

A family of 4 with parents a high school student and a 14 year old who make 130 k a year and receiving typical financial aid would pay about $17,000 for total expenses at Harvard. At Cal State they would pay 24,000 and at U of California at Santa Cruz about 33,000. Berkeley is a bit cheaper at about 19,500. Of course it is probably more difficult to get in to Berkeley and also to get into Harvard or Yale.

Dean Kulju of financial aid director of the California State System notes that tuition fees have doubled since 2007. Students have protested a number of times about the changes. However bonds issued by the system were well received. Even though funding is decreasing analysts remarked that the system could always gain revenue by increasing fees!

In 2011-2012 cuts the public universities lost more than one billion dollars in support from the state. Another 300 million is to be cut also as revenues are lower than projected.

Since 2009, public universities in the state have lost $2 billion and community colleges have had $695 million cut from their budgets. For more see the full article here. Perhaps California will become the largest exporter of university students in the U.S.

California: Higher Education Disaster

 An article by Kevin Carey at this site describes the deteriorating situation in higher education in California. Carey notes that there have been several articles that have focused on problems at the UC-Berkeley. Berkeley is at the top of a three layer system with the community colleges at the base the California State University and finally Berkeley at the top.
   Carey admits that there are problems at Berkeley. The state share of the budget has gone from 47 per cent to 11 per cent since 1991. Within six years tuition has doubled. Classes often are oversubscribed. But even greater problems exist within other tiers of the system according to Carey.
     About 30,000 students the top high school graduates go to the UC campus while about 50,000 enroll in the middle level California State University system. The rest, about 120,000, must go to community colleges. Most high school graduates are thus unable to directly enter a four year university program.
   To complete a four year degree students from the community colleges must be able to  transfer into the four year system usually California State. However Carey shows that the numbers transferring has been dropping over the last few years. Just 3 years ago California State took in 55,000 transfer students a year. Over two years this number dropped by 14,000. The cuts were not due to shrinking enrollments in the community colleges but because of shrinking budgets in the State system. Transfers have been made more difficult by raising GPA standards among other methods. While Obama makes higher education a priority budget cuts have made it impossible for about 12,000 students to even enter the four year system in California.
   Some students have transferred to out of state institutions such as the University of Phoenix. Transfers to that university from the California community colleges have risen 300 per cent over the last ten years. Carey says things in the community college system are worst of all the tiers in the system.
    While enrollment rose up until 2008-2009. after that there were severe budget cuts in the community college system. Enrollment plunged by 400,000 students just at a time when economic conditions made the system crucial for retraining and upgrading people. Carey claims that negative effects on California and the U.S. as a whole will be long lasting. For much more see the entire article.