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America is a country that stands on a founding principle that its quality of education determines the level of self-governance. California is one of the most populous states in our nation and for its citizens unfortunately, their constitutional duty is being betrayed by the state’s legislators.

This in turn is preventing the effort of people to cultivate a citizenry that is capable of promoting public interest and conserving liberty. Being a stepping stone to a four-year degree course, open access is offered by the California Community Colleges system.

One of the largest multi-campus systems in the world offering BA and MA programs, the California State System has always been teaching focused. University of California system has always been known to provide professional business, medicine and law education, training to doctoral students and education for top undergraduates.

Its emeriti and current faculty boasts of four Pulitzer Prize winners, 141 National Academy of Sciences members, 32 MacArthur Fellows and nine Nobel Laureates. Three-pillared system in California has always been considered to be American Public higher education’s gold standard. Today, harsh fiscal realities have caught up and the system is on a downward trend.

Public higher education system in California has been hit severely due to the strained state finances. Apart from unavoidable finance-related issues, the universities and colleges in this state that are funded by taxpayers reel from other self-inflicted issues too.

Some issues are related to an inability to effectively deal with aspects that are directly responsible for higher education bubble inflation in our country. As with every other state in our country, rate of inflation has been outpaced by cost of college education in California.

Across the nation, there has been an average of 28 per cent rise in public universities tuition and fees. The UC campuses has seen an increase of 73.1 per cent while the Cal State campuses an astounding 83.8 per cent.

Educational institutions in California are under-utilizing classroom and lab space by seeking billions for new buildings and by turning away students. If this trend continues, these institutions will not be able to meet their faculty retirement programs obligations in the next decade.

Another disturbing trend in California higher education is the increasing compromise on fundamental, liberal education requirements such as classroom pedagogy, curricula adoption and free speech limitations by the educators.

Board of Regents in California must take it up as a legal, political and moral duty to compel university administrators and professors to do their jobs to the best of their ability which is to give students an opportunity to get education for liberty.

If California Constitution mandated oversight responsibilities are not exercised by the legislature and the regents, the people of California must rise in unison and rally to demand a transparent accounting. They must realize that in order to enjoy prosperity, happiness and freedom, liberal education is crucial.

It is time to bring about a drastic reform and ensure that the future of the state’s education and quality of citizenry is not at risk.