Sacramento, CA – Citing the past decade of recurring tuition and fee increases in the CSU and UC systems that have increasingly pushed the costs of a college education out of reach of disadvantaged students, Assemblyman Jeff Gorell (R-Camarillo) today announced his disappointment over the continued underfunding of the California State University budget after the bicameral budget conference committee voted tonight 6-2 to abandon efforts to augment appropriations to the California State University system.

“In adopting Proposition 30, California’s voters were promised that this massive tax increase would go to public education including reinvestment in our public universities,” stated Assemblyman Gorell. “The California State Universities are the pillars of our state’s economy and culture. Moreover, education provides our next generation with the opportunity to achieve personal and professional goals, and those opportunities provided by our institutions of higher learning are often the way by which our underprivileged youth can escape a cycle of hardship and greatly improve their lives.”

Assemblyman Gorell circulated a bipartisan letter to express support to the Governor and legislative leadership advocating an increase of $95 million over Governor Brown’s level of funding sought by the CSU system to increase access. The letter was signed by 33 members of the legislature.

“The vitality of our state’s economy comes from our ability to produce highly educated workers from a world-class public university system. By not properly funding higher education, we are undermining our future.”

Half of California’s new teachers come from the CSU system, along with half of our engineering graduates. In high demand career fields such as agriculture, criminal justice, public administration and business the California State University system awards more Bachelor’s degrees than all other universities in the state combined.

A study by the Public Policy Institute of California (PPIC) in 2012 found that during the recession the UC and CSU enrollment rates have fallen by one fifth, pinning the blame firmly on the increased tuition and fees at these campuses caused by the state’s underfunding of higher education. The PPIC study additionally projected that California will end up falling one million college graduates short of the state’s economic needs by 2025 unless these enrollment and graduation rates improve.