UC
is
in
trouble

September 2, 2011 -- In the California budget crisis, most of the University's State funding has been cut. On a personal level, I am saddened and dismayed by our State's repudiation of its noble 1960 Master Plan for Higher Education. To it, I owe much of my own academic and professional career. In the bigger picture, to it our State owes much of its economic ascendancy to one of the world's largest economies, an achievement that is now threatened.

Our renouncing of this proud promise to our own future began in the '70s with Jarvis-Gann and accelerates today with mean-spirited anti-tax movements of Grover Norquist and his demagogic Tea Party offspring. The stepwise gutting of the mighty UC system is both tragic, putting top-flight University and graduate education beyond reach of ever-growing numbers, and short-sighted, reducing the growth of technology and culture, diminishing our prospects for a prosperous future.

This is a sad time indeed.

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