To put this cut into more understandable terms, a $386 million shortfall equates to closing five midsized CSU campuses like Sonoma or Bakersfield, or one much larger campus such as CSU Fullerton.

Cutting the budget of the California State University is the wrong thing to do for the people of California. The CSU enables and empowers the hopes and dreams of many Californians. The CSU is an important contributor to economic productivity and growth in California. Cutting the CSU
will surely damage the state's economy, contributing to future state revenue shortfalls and budget deficits rather than resolving them.

It is well established that every dollar the state spends on the CSU is an investment that immediately generates more than $4 for the California economy. CSU students and faculty rent apartments, buy transportation, and purchase clothes, groceries, and entertainment. CSU students and alumni spend nearly $60 billion annually and generate over $3 billion in tax revenue. All in all, the consumption activity of the CSU and its graduates support more than a half-million jobs in the state's economy.

Projecting a little bit into the future and factoring in the higher salaries that college graduates earn, the return on a $1 investment in the CSU is more like $17 for California communities. If the CSU suffers budget cuts, the predictable result will be that individual incomes will stagnate and California's economic growth and tax revenues will slow. It makes little sense to cut funding to the state's (indeed, the nation's) largest public university at a time when the state needs more college-educated citizens.

It would be wise to remember a proverb often heard in rural California - "don't eat the seed corn!" If the CSU is cut, California could go from being a good-wage, knowledge-based economy to a low-wage economy. The California State University is the state's primary source of human capital. The CSU educates the people who are the backbone of California's professional work force.

The campuses of the CSU graduate 87 percent of the state's teachers, 64 percent of its nurses, 89 percent of its criminal justice professionals, 87 percent of its social workers, 65 percent of its business professionals, and 52 percent of its agricultural professionals. In fact, the CSU awards 51 percent of all the bachelor's degrees granted in the state of California. These college graduates become amongst the most productive members of the state's economy, economically independent and taxpaying contributors to the overall health of the state.

It is illogical for the governor, on one hand, to declare that the state needs many more credentialed school teachers to educate our youth and qualified engineers to rebuild our infrastructure while, at the same time, reducing funding to the very institution that produces these and other needed professional workers.

It is nonsensical for the governor to call for an expansion of the middle class and expanded opportunities for the state's veterans while, at the same time, reducing funding to the institution that provides the state's professional workers.

Cutting the budget of the California State University will do more than damage the state's economy; it will defer our shared dream of social justice. The CSU is a primary avenue of earned social mobility for the less fortunate and underserved citizens of the state. The CSU graduates 58 percent of the state's Latinos who earn bachelor's degrees; it graduates 52 percent of African-Americans and 53 percent of Native Americans in the state with bachelor of arts degrees. It is the primary source of higher education for the state's working and middle-class families.

Already rapidly increasing student fees (fees are up 94 percent since 2002) are making it more and more difficult for working and middle-class students to afford a college education. Further cuts to the CSU will mean that those students who can afford the CSU will find fewer classes and larger classes when they arrive on campus. As a result, it will take them longer and longer to earn the credits required for graduation.

The California State University is an important positive economic force for the state. It is the major producer of the state's necessary human capital. It is perhaps the state's most productive avenue of social and economic mobility. It is the foundation of the California dream and a primary source of hope in the lives of the state's citizens.

Rather than being a contributor to the state's budget problem, CSU is the solution.

Tom Meisenhelder is professor emeritus of sociology at Cal State San Bernardino and president of the San Bernardino Chapter of the California Faculty Association.