With So Much At Stake, This Is The Year To Get Involved

And There Are A Multiplicity Of Opportunities For You

To Use Your Power:

AB 656: Make CA Oil Extractors Pay Their

March 4th Statewide Day
of Action for Education*
Last November activists from
across the state came together
at UC Berkeley and selected
March 4th as a day of statewide
mobilization on behalf of public
education. You can learn more
at:
http://www.defendeducation.org/
Fair Share!
Right now California is the only state in the union with un-
taxed oil extraction operations. Even Texas taxes its oil
extracting business! Maybe that’s why they have the money
to lure UC professors to move to UT.
Albert Torrico, who represents the East Bay in the State
Assembly, has introduced AB 656, a bill that will create an
Oil Severance Tax to fund Higher Education. You can sign
a petition for the bill here:

http://albertotorrico.com/Fair-Share-for-Fair-Tuition

Join the Faculty-Led Campaign To

Keep California’s Promise*, And
Learn More About the Budget at
www.keepcaliforniaspromise.org
Feb 26th-Mar. 1st: U.C. Student
Association Lobby Conference!
Spend a weekend organizing in Sacramento and
then get the chance to share your story about how
budget cuts affected you to representatives them-
selves—and for free! To apply, email Victor San-
chez at evc.sua@gmail.com for an application.
Learn more at: teachthebudget.org
Per-Student State funding declined dramatically over
the last two decades. This is not a result of something out
Learn about ways to express your voice at: of the state’s control, as average spending nation wide re-
http://checkingeducation.com/ mained constant (see above). Although our fees are going
up, overall per-student spending continues shrinking.
U.C. Santa Cruz Faculty Asso-
On top of this, the Regents over-
ciation enrolled UC by 14,000, meaning there
A collective bargaining chapter of
are 14,000 students at UC for whom
CUCFA and AAUP.
we receive no state funding. The Re-
Ucscfa.org gents also oversaw the mismanage-
Team Up With UCSC’s Faculty Union! ment of UC’s pension fund and spi-
raling administrative costs.
♦Organize With Graduate Students♦
♦
Join the Graduate Student Organizing Committee
(Known as “GSOC”—undergraduates welcome!)
affordableuc.org

Join the Fight to SAVE CAL GRANTS and

ACADEMIC PREP Programs through a
credit internship of direct action organizing!
Email Claudia Magana: od.sua@gmail.com for information!

The Result? Our generation is paying higher

Printed by The Student Union Assembly————-sua.ucsc.edu “Student Voice,
Tel: 831-459-4838, Email coaa.sua@gmail.com to get involved! Student Power,
Student Action”
fees than any students in California history.
 Q: Aren’t We Broke, Though?
A: Yes, But We Don’t Have To Be
Percentage Of Voters in Favor of Proposed
New Sources of Income In Late April 2009*
Increase state tobacco taxes
Increase state income taxes on
individuals earning more than
$1 million a year
Increase state alcohol taxes
Legalize marijuana for recrea-
tional use and tax its proceeds
Create an oil severance tax on
oil drilled in California
Collect sales taxes from Cali-
fornians who buy products
from out-of-state sellers on
the Internet
* http://www.field.com/fieldpollonline/subscribers/Rls2306.pdf, pg. 7
Anti-higher education pundits will tell
you the crisis is happening because “government
size is out of control,” and that the only solution
is to slash budgets. But they’re wrong. The
Equal Opportunity and Diversity Are Threatened
If The Governor gets his way and cuts Competitive Cal
Grants and Academic Prep programs, UC’s diversity
The State of California faces another ~$20 billion crisis will worsen:
75% budget shortfall, just like last year, and won’t be
able to restore enough recently lost funding to the
74%
UC to rebuild our courses and programs.
Inflationary and other costs continue to spi-
74% ral at UC, including millions of dollars in
executive compensation.*
56% ______________________________________________________________________________________
UCSC campus may have to grapple with cuts up
54% to 10$ million in permanent state funding for next
year’s budget, and that’s on top of the cuts we al- Even before this budget crisis, UCSC struggled to
51% ready took for this year’s operating budget! attract and retain Californians from all backgrounds
equally.
In a 2006 Statement, UC committed itself to fixing
this injustice:
Let’s say the Regents and State are “nice” and
only force our campus to slash its budget by $6 million “Because the core mission of the University of Cali-
dollars. That would be equivalent to: fornia is to serve the interests of the State of Califor-
nia, it must seek to achieve diversity among its student
• Cutting 100 FTE (Full Time Equivalent) TA Positions
bodies and among its employees.”
(saves ~$3.2 million), and
(http://www.ucop.edu/ucophome/coordrev/policy/PP063006DiversityStatement.pdf)

state still has many politically popular sources of
new revenue it could utilize to maintain our col-
leges and universities (see above).
The anti-taxes talk is a manipulative
attempt to persuade Californians to voluntar-
ily give up our prestigious universities, col-
leges and other public services we once en-
joyed.
Cuts to the UC will also hamper our
recovery. Funding the UC is a proven path to
long term prosperity. For example:
“The total statewide economic contribution from
UCSD start-up companies – 67 currently active
companies in California that generate more than
$10 billion in annual sales – is more than $37
billion annually and nearly 130,000 jobs.” Empha-
sis added(http://ucsdnews.ucsd.edu/EconomicImpact/)
Each UC spurs innovation, creativity
and activity which in total contribute billions of
dollars into the state economy. Our long term
well being is jeopardized by the potential de-
struction of educational opportunity and techno-
logical, social and cultural innovation.
• Laying Off 40 Lecturers (saves ~2.7 million)**
Think your classes are big now? Think you had
trouble getting into your classes this quarter?
Every Student Needs To Get Involved To
Stop Classes From Getting More Impacted
*http://www.ktvu.com/news/20057521/detail.html
**This is based on the assumption that all 40 lecturers would be making ~$67,000 a
year. Lecturer salaries can range widely, from $45,000 to over $90,000 a year.
Can the UC really meet its diversity goals when it is
too expensive for most Californians to attend? How
can the UC truly represent the people of California
when fees are skyrocketing?
Fee hikes come at a time of greater wealth
stratification in our country, where the gap between
top and bottom incomes is the greatest it has been
since World War Two:
Those of us in the so called “bottom 90%” of working
families cannot afford higher prices for a UC that
used to be free!