MEDIA ADVISORY FROM STUDENTS FOR QUALITY EDUCATION
For Immediate Release: Friday, July 6, 2018
Contact: Jorge Quintana: 916-612-0692, [email protected]
Advocacy Pays Off As State Budget Includes Boost to CSU
Last week the California Legislature passed, and Governor Brown signed, a budget with an unprecedented additional $364 million for the CSU.
This vast improvement over Governor Brown’s funding proposal in January is a result of the hard work that Students for Quality Education and many others have put into advocating for more funding over the past six months. Students, along with faculty, staff, and community allies, have tirelessly spoke out in favor of more CSU funding. We did this to stop the CSU administration’s proposed tuition increase, admit qualified students from being turned away, and avoid cuts to our education.
Members of SQE and other students across the state have taken action in many ways to show the California Legislature that the CSU needs full funding. We kicked off the school year by conducting an affordability survey and showing up at Board of Trustees meetings even before a tuition increase was announced, to highlight the crisis of affordability. We did banner drops and made phone calls and held forums. We pressured our administrators to do their part and advocate strongly for increased funding. We helped mobilize 1,000 students, faculty, staff and community members to the state capitol on April 4th to demand that Governor Brown Free The CSU from budget cuts, racism, fear and discrimination.
Throughout all of this advocacy, we tied this funding need to a bigger vision for California public higher education. We rejected budget cuts while also rejecting the idea that if a cut were to happen, the costs would fall on the backs of students. We fought for more funding this year while recognizing that CSU per-student funding is far below where it was 30 years ago, and small increases each year won’t be enough.
“Students should not have to worry about paying more for tuition every year. Now that our representatives and trustees have shown that they understand the need to fund higher education, we need to ensure that they don’t forget,” said Jorge Quintana, a SQE leader from Sacramento State.
This victory will make a real difference in the lives of many CSU community members, and it signals the growing power of the student movement and the fight for restoring our public higher education. Ultimately, we cannot fight this battle year after year as the state continues to propose cuts. We need all students, faculty, staff, and community members to come together to advocate for a dedicated source of funding for the CSU. SQE will continue to work to build this coalition and fight for free, quality, accessible higher education throughout California.