Here is a startling idea

From the Regents of the University of California at Los Angeles:

(I)t now appears likely the UC system, in this current fiscal crisis, will be ordered by Sacramento to absorb yet another $800-plus million in additional cuts. Its 2009-10 core budget will be reduced by an estimated 20 percent. This will bring the amount of state investment in the University down to $2.4 billion - exactly where it was in real dollars a decade ago.

In the same time frame, by the way, funding for state prisons has more than doubled, from $5 to $11 billion. It’s been reported that, based on current spending trends, California’s prison budget soon will overtake that of the state’s universities and community colleges.

I have degrees from three campuses of the University of California system and it is dear to my heart. (Fortunately I was never eligible for the prison system.) The idea that the state which brought us the movies, much of modern aviation and electronics, and the benefits of Silicon Valley spending more on prisons than on higher education is truly ugly, not to mention frightening, JAD