As We Lose Our Jobs, Unionized CA College Profs Want More

-By Warner Todd Huston

Without question we are living through the worst economic times in generations and Barack Obama’s policies aren’t helping alleviate the pain. Pain is, indeed, the watchword, too. Nearly everyone knows someone that has lost his job. Nearly everyone has lost money for their retirement. Everyone is feeling the pain. And no one is very sanguine that it’s getting any better. Well, no one but unionized university professors in California, anyway. They are so sure that things are better than ever that they expect constantly growing pay and even richer benefits to be borne on the backs of the taxpayers.

There’s a lesson in this somewhere.

California’s university professor union, the California Faculty Association, has looked upon the crumbling state of California in the economic disaster that is the United States and instead of seeing a goad toward austerity, the CA sees greater spending as an answer to what ails them.

The gal these unionistas have.

J.P. Freire of the Washington Examiner tells us that the CFA has issued a report titled, “Quality Higher Education for the 21st Century,” in which they demand broad increases in spending on every level. More classes, more teachers, more students, more, more, more.

Freire notes that many students are no longer finding that the high cost of their college education is justified by the lower paying jobs that are now offered to graduates, not to mention the lower rate of return that whole careers are now offering.

A recent New York Times profile of a student named Courtney Munna graduated from New York University with nearly $100,000 of debt for her schooling. Yet her degrees seem to be meaningless in her search for employment. Freire finds this to be not only all too common, but finds that the CFA is not making any sense to address this new reality in its wild demands for greater spending and increases in state run education.

Professors like those at CFA think that this problem should be fixed by offsetting her [student Munna’s] debt moreso, by allowing her to get that women’s education degree cheaper by providing a subsidy of some kind. The problem is that the market has spoken: Employers don’t value her education, and so its value is inflated.

The value is not just inflated. It is manufactured, fantastical, absurd. Let’s face it. Not everyone needs a higher education. We have over inflated the whole concept of what a college degree should represent and made every degree the lesser for it.

Unions have been at the vanguard of that inflation all so that they can milk ever-higher amounts of money from the stateā€¦ and YOU, the taxpayer.
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“The only end of writing is to enable the reader better to enjoy life, or better to endure it.”
–Samuel Johnson

Warner Todd Huston is a Chicago based freelance writer. He has been writing opinion editorials and social criticism since early 2001 and before that he wrote articles on U.S. history for several small American magazines. His political columns are featured on many websites such as Andrew Breitbart’s BigGovernment.com, BigHollywood.com, and BigJournalism.com, as well as RightWingNews.com, RightPundits.com, CanadaFreePress.com, StoptheACLU.com, AmericanDaily.com, among many, many others. Mr. Huston is also endlessly amused that one of his articles formed the basis of an article in Germany’s Der Spiegel Magazine in 2008.

For a full bio, please CLICK HERE.


3 thoughts on “
As We Lose Our Jobs, Unionized CA College Profs Want More”

  1. I remember a buddy of mine that worked for a California “City College” telling me of a verbal encounter he had with a co-worker. Both were instructors in the “Higher Education” of youngsters.

    (Please understand the ‘quotes’ are not quite exact but the last line is exactly as my friend told me.)

    At issue in their discussion was a new program that was being proposed and my friend asked, “Where is the money going to come from for this?”

    “The State (of California).” was the reply.

    “The State is broke and, in fact, in debt.” said my friend.

    “The State can get the money from the Federal Government.”

    “They are broke too.”

    “They can always print up more money.”

    ~~~~

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