The California Legislature approved a budget Friday that restores $199 million to the California State University system.
The budget includes the first restoration of state funding to the CSU since 2007, and provides $60 million for increasing enrollment on the 23 campuses, according to calstate.edu.
Cal State Long Beach has used furloughs, student-fee hikes and enrollment freezes to cope with diminished funding. The CSU system reduced enrollment by 40,000 students since 2008 because of trimmed state funds.
“One might say we went from state-funded to state-located overnight,” said CSULB President F. King Alexander at the convocation of the 2010-11 academic year in August.
The CSU website states that the $199 million will be used to fill in a $305 million cut the state made to higher-education funding in the 2009-10 year. A one-time federal stimulus of $106 million will also help the CSU meet its payroll.
Administrators responded with cautious optimism.
“Like the rest [of] California, the last two years have been extremely challenging for us,” said Chancellor Charles B. Reed in a statement issued on calstate.edu. “But our mission is to educate the future workforce of the state, and despite these ongoing challenges the CSU will continue to provide both access and service to students.”
Since the state budget cuts began, students have protested and participated in letter-writing campaigns to encourage the state to keep higher education a priority. As reported in the Daily 49er on Oct. 5, the California State Student Association launched a campaign called “Made in the CSU” that seeks to let people know that university system graduates are a large amount of California’s workforce. The campaign was meant to remind the public and lawmakers that any cuts to higher education may have ripple effects through the coming decades.
Friday’s state budget vote came a record 100 days after its deadline. Some still see the budget as shaky: the plan anticipates $5.4 billion in new federal aid and includes about $7.5 billion in cuts to education, public safety and other areas, according to the Wall Street Journal. The bill is now awaiting Gov. Schwarzenneger’s signature.
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