Maddie Shannon
Ihave four dollars in my wallet, just one dollar short of getting tofu at Panda Express.
While this is a frustrating situation (because I am quite hungry as I’m writing this), I realize that I spent most of my money on Saturday when I was out with friends. And while I was spending this money, I knew that I might be a little hungry on Tuesday afternoon when I’m writing my next column. C’est la vie.
So now that the news about Gov. Jerry Brown’s tax initiative and how it’s going to affect enrollment is breaking, I think the CSU needs to have the same realization I had. Dinner yesterday might just mean no after-school snack today. Or, in political terms, excessive spending a few years ago means that there will be a lot of high school and transfer students who can’t go to school with us next year, and the year after that.
But when you’re talking about people’s futures, not food, the situation becomes much more complicated. So instead of saying tough luck, CSU applicants, better luck next time, the best solution to the problem lies in private funding, not taxes and not budget cuts.
Last year, private donors alone gave more than $344 million to the CSU system, and Fresno State raised $15.7 million through private funding. (Probably through the Campaign for Fresno State, whose telemarketers call my parents for donations. Every. Single. Night.)
Which just goes to show that when you bug people about taxes for education (or taxes for anything, for that matter), people grumble about it, but pay, because if they don’t they’ll go to jail. When you bug people about donations for education (or donations for anything, for that matter), people don’t really grumble as much, and then they pay when they actually want to. Again, C’est la vie.
Private donors have more money than the state does at the moment. Until the state of California starts to live within its means, that will continue to be the case.
So do your thing, Campaign for Fresno State, do your thing. Maybe by increasing private funding we can offset the enormous cost of going to school, and then I’ll have money to eat more tofu.
Maddie Shannon is a former arts & entertainment editor for The Collegian who now writes a fortnightly column for The Collegian.