Each year the enrollment at Universities and private colleges alike practically multiply. With growing enrollment we can only infer correlating costs; new dorms to be made, larger libraries, and sidewalks that can handle heavier foot traffic. Many private schools rely on their pricey tuition paid for by Americas uppers class, and donations made to their endowment by trustees, alumni, and other philanthropically inclined natives of the area. Harvard released its annual report for 2010 augmented by an impressive 11.0% return increasing the total endowment to a cool $27.6 billion dollars. Harvard’s endowment is enough to pay off all the creditors of GM, yet the taxpayers took this hit.

This is not an attack on Harvard but rather an effort to make transparent how private institutions wealth is continuously bolstered while state universities funding repeatedly falls to the wayside. On Monday according to the Orange County Register, Governor Jerry Brown of California proposed $12.5 billion in spending cuts. What is on the table to cut? Higher education, and in particular, State Universities that allow student of California to attend at a lower cost due to support from the state that encompasses it. Referring to the article Brown says,

” higher education, unlike health care services, is an easy place to cut because it’s not tied up in federal mandates.”

The two proposed schools to be hit are the University of California, and California State University, two that truly to not need another hit to their funding. The current enrollment between all 23 campuses is 431,755. Brown proposes to cut 1 Billion total from the two school (500 million each). This means that if split evenly, each student will either receive $1,158 less of education or expect to pay that additional to attend a school that costs $4,230 annually, a 27% tuition increase. In addition, Bloomberg reported “The state would cut funding to the state’s 112 community colleges by $400 million and raise student fees from $26 to $36 per unit to generate an additional $110 million.”

California is not the only State that may see crippling cuts to their state education. Minnesota who currently sits at an $6.2 Billion deficit, plans on cutting their grant program put in place to increase enrollment.

” The program, a need-based grant that provides an average of $1,800 a year to more than 80,000 students… There is only $120 million in grants left for this year, and 20,000 fewer students are set to receive them.”

Governor Brown claims that his decisions are “very difficult,” but necessary to balance the budget. In a country where a college degree is now only standard and customary, these states should stop looking at what the EASY thing to do focus on making cuts that do not inhibit the next generation of leaders.