End of the CSUs

A year ago, I was in a Political Philosophy class and the professor said "California State University Northridge will not be around in 20 years." I thought he was a crazy professor with a flair for the melodramatic. I was right, but he was also right.

Now, I take the same professor for a Modern Political Philosophy class. He says the exact same sentence. I look to the left of me and notice 20 people wanting to add who can't get the classes they need. They won't get in because the administration froze permission numbers. They're visiting the class has been in vain. They will soon flee to community college for a semester and then transfer out of state. The CSU Chancellor has said that he wants an 11% cut in CSU enrollment. He will get it.

My professor said the process will take 20 years. I give California State University system as we know it about a decade. Cuts and the inability for a budget to be made have killed the system. The system is too big to sustain.

The dream of subsidized public higher education in California is dying if not already dead.

There are a couple of choices I think the CSU system must do in order to salvage what is left of this subsidized public higher education system:

1) Cut down the number of schools.
23 is too many. There are several schools within an hours or so drive even from CSU Northridge (Long Beach, Los Angeles, Dominguez Hills). There is a need to consolidate. What I think should happen is that the state comes up with criteria for which schools survive the cut. I would suggest a combination of academic performance and ability to get jobs, much like a law school ranking system. The schools that do not survive the cut get spun off into the community college system, get privatized into non-state universities, or simply sell the space to other buildings.

2) Increase the admissions standards.
It is in my experience far too easy to get into CSUN. I know it goes against the principle of expanding higher education to the disadvantaged, but I feel that raising the GPA/SAT standards to get into CSUs would improve the health of the system. Part of the problem we face now is the fact that the system over-enrolled before the decline. I have often called CSU Northridge "Cal State Community College Northridge". Perhaps I am coming of as an arrogant elitist, but I feel a higher admissions standard would yield a better intellectual crop than what I currently see around campus and raise the prestige of the Cal State system.

Unfortunately, these are the only major ideas that I have that would save the California State University system. But as it stands, there must be a change to the current path.