Late last night, the Arizona Capitol Times wrote that Gov. Doug Ducey and the Republican leadership in the state House and Senate had reached a budget deal that will make even deeper cuts to universities and some community colleges’ funding.
Earlier this year, Ducey proposed to take $75 million in total from the three public universities—about $22 million would come from the UA—now that number is up to $104 million. Community colleges are screwed, too—this deal, which would still need to be approved by the state Legislature, asks to eliminate all state funding for Pima, Pinal and Maricopa community colleges, according to the Arizona Capitol Times.
Bachelor’s and master’s will become words kids won’t know the meaning of anymore in the future.
Also, is the state’s goal to completely gut community colleges?
I went to Pima for my associate’s degree because it is considerably cheaper than the UA. It saved me at least $10,000 that I don’t have to worry about paying back in loans now that I’ve out of school for years. Like many of you out there, I come from a single-parent, very middle-class household, and community colleges are at the top of the list for the first two, three years of the bachelor’s degree journey, or is it not?
At least from the 3,000 more beds in private prisons Ducey wanted, this new proposal only lets him get 2,000. Whoopy.
There will be another protest tomorrow afternoon at the state Capitol. It seems like all there is left to do is make a lot of noise and hope these politicians’ knees tremble a little bit, and tremble enough to think twice before cutting more money from universities, community colleges and public schools.
Lets make our voices heard and let the Governor know we are tired of the cuts to education. Please share this event on your timeline if you are in the State of Arizona. If you are a teacher or a concerned parent or community member, please share this so we can get representation on Thursday. Even if you can’t go, others may be able to attend. The cuts have to stop. Our teachers and students deserve better. The protest last Wednesday was a success, and we hope for even better participation this time – let’s make a statement that cannot be ignored. We aren’t just parents, or teachers or students – we are ARIZONANS WHO VOTE!
This article appears in Feb 26 – Mar 4, 2015.
Yes, as of today. A secret budget deal was struck last night and UA, ASU, NAU and community colleges in Maricopa, Pinal and Pima counties are going to get further reductions.
The good ole AZ Legislature flips off higher education.
It’s time we flipped them OUT of office.
When the liberal left allows the responsible development of Arizona’s natural resources, a substantial and sustainable tax base will follow. However, the anti-development/environmentalist/socialist movements refuse to allow important natural resource projects to advance, such as Resolution and Rosemount, thus it is necessary to use the limited tax funds for other things.
Want more money in education, support good job opportunities such as mining, otherwise suffer the natural consequences of reduced funding. Good jobs = a good tax base = adequate funding for the things that are most important. It worked this way in Arizona for most of 100 years until zealous environmental nuts ran the mining companies to Africa, Australia and Latin America.
Maybe a better place to start would have been to tell us just exactly how much money they HAVE been getting.
Is it 300M or 800M or 1B? What does the cut represent as a percentage of their budget?
Between increased healthcare costs because of ACA and tax increases my take home was reduced 10%. And you didn’t say a word.
Unfortunately, the millions they get mostly go toward salaries for administrative positions, NOT toward education = better salaries, steady tuition, less hidden fees, etc.
Bisbee Boy, destroying the Santa Ritas and polluting the ground water so a Canadian company can ship ore to China for 20 years is not the answer to anything and can hardly be called sustainable or stable. Educating the young so that they can then compete in the global workforce, which would also attract employers to Arizona, is a far more sustainable and stable approach to solving this state’s self-created budget woes.
Will Ducey and the Republican gang in the legislature find more ways to cut spending for education? Of course they will!
Nice.
Arizona HATES THEIR OWN KIDS!!!.
It’s what you would expect from a right-wing republican paradise…
Since these policies force the University system to recruit out-of-state/out-of-country students to pay the huge tuition costs that they require to make up the difference and most Arizona kids can’t even afford the in-state bloated tuition…
The greatest advance in education in this country, which led to decades of prosperity, was the (late, lamented – Reagan/republican decimated) University of California system. When Pat Brown got finished, ANY California kid who had decent grades could go to UC and the tuition was a mere pittance — the State decided that educated their children was worth the cost…
But, Arizona HATES their OWN KIDS!!!
Civil disobedience is the only way to stop this, and make no mistake, if we don’t stop them now, things will get far, far worse in Arizona; and not just education.
The “It’s a Dry Hate” state has launched an assault on civility and better education that would make Pol Pot proud and will make this state an even more second rate monstrosity than it already is…and who thought that was possible? Let’s see: A male dominated, rigid, narrow minded, feudal system that often employs fear tactics and hides behind a strict interpretation of religion to forward it’s sick and anti-American agenda: ISIS, or the Republi-Klan party, formerly known as the party of Lincoln, currently known as the party of Lincolns, aka: Guardians of Privilege.
Ans: Both A and B.
We know, we know, you’re doing it for the children. That’s what you always claim. It’s just that you expect the adults to hand over unlimited amounts of cash.
Education MUST become accountable to somebody. It’s way past time.
I really have no problem being taxed for education 1st grade thru 12th grade; Kindergarten is just a babysitter and a waste of money. After high school if you want to go to college you pay for it, get grants, etc. I’m tired of paying for everybody’s collage.
Here it is briefly… summarized by Steve Farley. I just want to add that 53M is going to private prisons on top of the millions they are already getting. Also charters are getting more. Regular public schools are not. Obviously tax cuts for the wealthy come before children. Prisons for profit come before children. A lot of these cuts are not going into the classroom. This is murky area… can’t nail down who in public education are getting the money for the classroom. It is awful. By the way Clifford there will be no grants….. there is no money allotted there. I copied this from another post I made so it is a little repetitive from what I just wrote. If you don’t like this, go to AZleg.gov and go to Senate Appropriations ( it is under groups or something like that)and send emails or call ASAP!
You can send something to Governor Ducey but I don’t think he is paying any attention to what the public wants. Recall ?
Just in case you still think that this is just moving money from ‘waste’ to the classroom, this is a summary of cuts to be made in our state which they want to have finalized by Friday: It is appalling and believe it or not, I have no more words. Note : private prisons and cuts for the wealthy take priority over many things in our state. Apparently a lot of people don’t care about children, health and education.> Cuts to hospital and provider rates for those providing care to Medicaid / AHCCCS patients total $127 million over two years which mean a loss of another $508 million in federal matching funds from Arizona’s economy over that time.
–> K-12 schools are cut $98 million in FY16 and another $157 million in FY17.
–> Community colleges in Pima, Pinal, and Maricopa Counties are zeroed out completely from state funding.
–> Universities are cut 14% for a $104 million cut in FY16.
–> JTED programs are cut by $30 million in FY17.
–> TUSD is singled out for a $8 – $15 million hit annually from elimination of the 1% prop tax cap which may lead to higher prop taxes.
–> $10 million cuts to the Department of Child Safety.
–> $360 million left untouched in the Rainy Day fund.
–> and no discussion of suspending the remaining $883 million in corporate tax giveaways that will go into effect in the next three years or the $12.6 billion in special interest sales tax loopholes.
Maria Ines that is not true…. Anytime you really want the truth go to TUSD’s budget. It has wonderful graphs and I was amazed that in another article Gov. Ducey even said something to the effect that he knows TUSD has had a lot of cuts and spends more money than most for children in the classroom however, the cuts are for all. Please get facts.
Maria I tend to think all districts are like TUSD and I know they are not. I spent a lot of time looking at TUSD’s budget and it certainly didn’t appear that way. I am very upset as I am sure you can tell by what is going on and didn’t think about the other districts in the state.
Most Arizonans are morons, as the comments here prove. They have been morons for a long time. The legislature’s morons wants to continue the tradition of Arizonans being morons, and so this is clearly part of that. Several school districts in the Phoenix area are going to 4-day school weeks next year due to budget cuts.
But don’t worry: there are states in the US that value education a lot more, that fund it properly. If you’re not a moron, you probably live in one, as I do. If you’re in Arizona and you’re not a moron, you need to move because Arizona will never, ever change.
Why don’t they privatize food services at all the universities? The food service at the UA is not sustaining and is a money drain on academics. Why can’t the lucrative sports give more financial support to the academia? Why not look for actual savings that could be had instead of screaming for more money to waste instead of privatizing student services? Governor Ducey inherited a large budget deficit that he is responsibly attempting to address. He deserves support.