California Prop 92

Proposition 92 has an annual cost of over $300,000,000 with marginal benefit, as far as I can tell. At a time when California cannot afford it’s current spending level, we cannot ethically spend this much money. Here are the main reasons to vote against 92:

• Prop 92 creates a Board of Governors to oversee CCs statewide. This will remove control of CCs from the region and create more beauracracy. I’m not convinced that this is a better beauracracy.
• It only lowers student fees by a measly $5/unit. Under the current system, low and middle income students don’t have to pay ANY fee. A friend of mine is taking advantage of this. All she had to do was fill out a paper and now she’s taking classes for free. So really, this only benefits well-to-do/rich kids - but do they care about $5/unit anyways? The current system is not a barrier to kids getting an education.
• Under this proposition, the funding level for community colleges would not be based on actual college attendance! Instead it would be calculated based on the population of young adults. There might be a reason for this, but I don’t understand it.

On the other hand, as SamriSqrl points out, all this money does go towards the CC system, much of which is returned to the California economy. She argues that better educated students will return money to the economy, a principle I agree with. Her main argument is that the CCs are at present underfunded and poorly staffed. While this doesn’t reflect my experience with the CCs, it may be true.

I’m still not convinced it’s worth the extra money however.