Speakers, including CSULB President F. King Alexander and Long Beach City Councilwoman Suja Lowenthal, warned the audience gathered near the University Bookstore that the proposed $313 million cut to the CSU system would hurt students and the state's economy.
"This is a call to action for our institution," said Alexander, urging people to sign petitions and contact legislators to voice their opposition to the cuts.
Schwarzenegger's proposed state budget, which has not yet been approved by the California legislature, envisions a 10 percent student fee increase. The budget could reduce planned CSU enrollment by up to 10,000 students.
The CSULB Budget Forum was sponsored by The Alliance for the CSU, a group including parents, students and union members.
For CSULB, Alexander told the Press-Telegram that the campus would see about $16 million in cuts in the 2008-2009 fiscal year.
About $6 million of those cuts would come in funds for health care and fixed costs, such as energy.
If the cuts are implemented, the campus would have to reduce by 50 the number of tenure-track faculty members it has planned to hire, he said.
Because about 45 faculty members are expected to retire this year, the reduction means fewer instructors and therefore fewer classes for students, he said.
The number of summer school offerings would drop by 40 percent, Alexander said. CSULB would see a reduction of more than 1,000 students enrolling on the campus this fall, he added.
Lowenthal, a former Long Beach school board member, said that the cuts "threaten to devastate education as we know it."
CSULB faculty member Craig Smith, who sits on the CSU Board of Trustees, said that he planned to fight the proposed cuts and fee increases, which he said have burdened students.
"They are swimming in taxes, which we call fees, and that should not be allowed to continue," he said.
Students also have had to contend with rising textbook prices at the same time, Smith added.
Mark Andrews, the campus' student government president, warned that the cuts would jeopardize the "California dream" for aspiring students and hurt the economy by reducing the number of graduates in high-demand fields such as nursing.
Felton Williams, president of the Long Beach Board of Education, said that education has been unfairly targeted for cuts. In addition, education has failed to receive a fair share of tax revenue during better economic times.
The cuts will hurt student success and reduce the number of students going to college, he added.
"The result will be that students ... will be forever denied the opportunity for education they deserve, and that's not right," he said.
by Kevin Butler, Long Beach Press-Telegram, March 26, 2008