REPUBLICAN GOVERNORS ARE SLASHING FUNDS TO PUBLIC EDUCATION
Bobby Jindal (R-LA): Louisiana Governor to cut $300 million dollars - nearly one-third of the education budget - from the state’s education funds. So what, exactly, does that mean? Put another way, a $300 million cut would also be around the same size as the total public operating budget for the Louisiana Community and Technical College system in 2014-15. The system ‘s public financial allocation — including revenue collected from tuition, the federal government and other dedicated funds — was only $308 million for this year.
Scott Walker (R-WI): Wisconsin’s Governor also aims to slash up to $300 million from public universities, while simultaneously devoting $500 million on a sports stadium. Students, professors and state lawmakers are already blasting the plan — the deepest cut in the state’s history.
Nikki Haley (R-SC): Another day, another story about a red-state governor de-funding higher education. This time it’s South Carolina — where the South Carolina House of Representatives has recommended that South Carolina State — the state’s only historically black college — close for two years in order to get its financial house in order.
Doug Ducey (R-AZ): Arizona’s Governor plans at least a $75 million cut to higher ed, will slash 10 percent from state university funding, and give only a token increase to K-12 schools by doubling the current $8 vehicle license fee (which disproportionately impacts the poorer). His proposed a budget closes the state’s $1.5 billion shortfalls by dipping into the “rainy-day fund,” sweeping $300 million from agency accounts and cutting programs by $384 million.
Sam Brownback (R-KS): The Kansas Governor plans $45 million cut to public school funding. Brownback spent his first term slashing taxes for the rich, promising it would lead to boom times for everyone else. Brownback’s “real live experiment” was supposed to lift Kansas out of the recession and into economic prosperity. The tax breaks instead led to debt downgrades, weak growth, and left the state finances in shambles.
(related posts: How Ronald Reagan started the conservative obsession with cutting education -and- Four ways privatization is ruining our education system)