Though the majority of California residents show significant concern for the state’s higher education system and feel it is heading in the wrong direction, most are not willing to pay more taxes in order to increase its funding, according to a survey published Wednesday.
The annual survey, conducted by the Public Policy Institute of California, polled over 2,500 Californians in five languages to measure sentiments on student debt and tuition, out-of-state admissions and approval ratings for Gov. Jerry Brown.
While 65 percent of those surveyed said they believe a lack of funding has significantly affected California institutions, an even larger majority agreed that more should be spent on higher education in general. Residents surveyed seemed to come to a general consensus on this point but showed little support for methods to find alternate revenue streams.
“We found 52 percent of the sample said they would oppose paying higher taxes,” said Sonja Petek, project manager of the survey. “This is certainly something we’ve found in other surveys, where people aren’t willing to make the sacrifices themselves to make up for the fiscal situation.”
Petek said this may be due to the fact that residents, like California’s colleges, have also suffered due to tough economic times following the 2008 recession. However, increasing taxes on behalf of higher education predictably garnered varying levels of support across party lines — 63 percent of Democrats were willing to increase taxes to maintain current funding, while 71 percent of Republicans said they would not do the same.
Hans Johnson, senior fellow at the institute, said this finding reflects an ongoing conflict in public policy.
“This is a long-standing problem and issue in that people want services, but they don’t want to pay for them,” he said.
In addition to concerns regarding revenue, the survey found that higher education may have an increasing effect on citizens’ view of politicians. Although Brown’s general approval rating was 47 percent, approval for how he has handled higher education was only 29 percent.
“I think we will continue to see some effects on how people view their elected officials,” Petek said. “They’re in a tough spot because there’s not a lot of funding to work with.”
With trigger cuts of an additional $100 million likely on the horizon due to revenue forecasts that project a larger budget gap than expected, Johnson said these issues are far from resolved for the University of California.
“Even if there is a trigger cut, UC apparently won’t raise tuition, at least this year,” Johnson said. “But of course, if they don’t get the money, they will have to.”
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How did CA get into this tragic financial mess? Well, in part because of the dismal economy, but primarily because of the mismanagement of funds by our CA state legislature. I have a brother in the 1% and he & his country club buddies don’t mind paying extra in taxes, however, they won’t because they know the money will be squandered by our government.
“primarily because of the mismanagement of funds by our CA state legislature.”
Another good reason to support higher education. Irrational dogmatic political hacks are the worst people to vote into power.
Californians know that increased tax revenues are always sucked up by unions first. The moment the unions smell new money, they go on strike claiming a host of grievances. Only a small portion of those increased revenues will trickle down to UC students. Just last month UC negotiated salary INCREASES for unionized employees, at a time when everyone else is facing cutbacks or layoffs.
And you know the reason why most of the people in this survey don’t want to pay higher taxes? It’s because it’s finally time for the RICH TO PAY! Everyone in the “99%” (so cliche now, but whatever, it’s fairly accurate) now is already paying to the breaking point, loosing homes, piling up huge debts, getting laid off…so it’s high time that the people who actually DO have money contribute to society. Otherwise, if I may make a Locke-ian statement, it is our right to kick them out of said society, because THEY ARE THE FREERIDERS sucking all the money out of the majority of the population. They exploit OUR labor to make THEIR money.
The rich and the middle class have been paying all along. Where do you think the wealth comes from? Certainly not the poor. And yeah, you can try to kick out the top 1%, but they simply move to Texas or Hawaii and then you’ll end up taxing the middle class even more, which is why most taxpayers in the middle class don’t believe deceptive slogans about only taxing the rich.