This coming election colleges are taking a political stance in a subject that is closer to home; students of California will be voting on their education.
Prop. 30 and Prop. 38 are new to the ballot and the fear of losing funding has stirred things up at the college level.
While both propositions will increase income tax on the wealthy to fund education, only Prop. 30 guarantees money to community colleges; bringing in $6 billion by increasing sales tax over the next seven years.
Proposition 38 on the other hand will raise $10 billion over a 12 year span, but the money will only go to schools K-12, and for the first four years it will help pay California debt.
In a phone conference with California Community Colleges Acting Chancellor Erik Skinner, California Community Colleges Vice Chancellor for College Finance & Facilities Planning Dan Troy and Student Senate for California Community Colleges President Rich Copenhagen it was mentioned that if Prop. 30 doesn’t pass, community colleges in California were going “to lose 80,000 students.”
They mentioned that California college students should expect to see the loss of childcare programs, part-time instructors being let go and courses being dropped if higher level education doesn’t receive the proper funding.
“This tax proposal is a very clear step in the right direction to preserve our institutes,” said Copenhagen. “No one can afford to not have prop. 30 pass.”
Either Prop. 30 or Prop. 38 can be put into place, or they can both fail, but both can’t be implemented at the same time.
