When Higher Education Takes the Low Road
As students are told every day that a college degree is absolutely necessary for a successful future, it is alarming to read of more cases of public education hardship. “They’re Hitting the Road to Get to Class” (May 4) proves even further that being a student is a commendable occupation. Without proper funding from the government, students are forced to spend their days waiting in traffic, hoping to make it to class in time to get a chair. This cuts down on the time spent with friends and family and especially on the time allotted for working so that increasing prices can be met. Then, as the tuition rises, teachers and staff are laid off due to decreased funding.
The burden of state budget crises should not be placed so heavily on young adults. Schooling should be accessible to all who seek to attend. If this is not attainable, then we live in a society that only cares to perpetuate the upper class and ignores the rest of us who are restricted by financial factors.
Kasey Edwards
UC Santa Barbara
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Re “Cuts at UC Force Many to Consider Their ‘Option,’ ” May 2: Realizing that my 3.85 GPA alone would not grant me admission to any prestigious university, I willingly enrolled in my local community college. Counselors and friends protested, similarly saying that four-year institutions offer the “academic prestige, the large student bodies from all over the nation, the big-name sports teams and the more lively on-campus social lives” that junior colleges do not. My experience in the years that ensued would prove them all wrong, however.
Instead of the typically crowded lower-division classes of 230, I acquired the same knowledge in a class of 35. Instead of paying $300 per unit, I paid $12 for the same credits. Rather than the expense dictating the number of undergraduate courses I could take, I surveyed dozens before declaring a major. It was at one of those disappointing little junior colleges that I connected with a passionate professor who introduced me to the love of my life: geography. I ultimately attended a private university on a full scholarship and walked away with a diploma identical to those earned after four years at the “real” universities.
As I begin applying to PhD grant programs, it is with pleasure I inform people that I am the product of California’s community college system.
Julienne Gard
Long Beach
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I read with horror about the college choices for California’s class of 2004. Close to 8,000 of these students applied to, qualified for and were accepted into the UC system only to be told not to bother showing up for class for another two years because there’s no money for their education. It seems that California’s educational system is flat broke.
Why? Because a bunch of Texas energy companies got greedy a few years ago. And now Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger doesn’t want to upset his rich pals by taxing them fairly. So the poor, the disabled, the young people of our state -- all of them have to live with less in this land of plenty. Our future is being held hostage by greed.
Mary Garripoli
Los Angeles
