By Randy Wilde, Staff Columnist

Your pocketbook is about to take another hit. Yes, your student fees are making yet another painful jump. Last Tuesday, the California State University Board of Trustees voted to increase fees by 5 percent for spring and another 10 percent in fall, adding up to a total increase of 76 percent from just five years ago. There is no reason why things should have gotten so bad, not when education is such a vital and profitable investment for our state.

I won’t launch into the tired tirade against fee increases and the evil schemes of the Board of Trustees. I actually believe the board members when they say the extra money is necessary to maintain academic programs and other services vital for our education, especially with the expected influx of an additional 30,000 students this spring.

The CSUs have decided to accept these students because of funding from the recently passed state budget. Thus the board calls this fee increase a necessary evil, threatening more of what we have already seen: furlough days, fewer qualified professors, growing class sizes and slashed academic programs. Fortunately, it is both CSU and U.C. policy to contribute about one-third of the revenue from any fee increase into financial aid. This is an admirable policy, but keeping student costs low in the first place would be even better.

U.C. President Mark Yudof has also proposed an 8 percent tuition increase after last year’s shocking hike of 32 percent. However, the U.C. has also considered an option the CSU has not — pension reform. Facing a looming pension disaster, the U.C. regents voted to cut benefits and increase employee contribution to the tanking U.C. Retirement Plan from 2 to 3.5 percent. Another proposal suggests increasing the minimum retirement age from 50 to 55 and the maximum benefit age from 60 to 65.

It’s refreshing to see them trying to tackle another budgetary issue rather than just going straight to the students with the bill. And as painful as it may be for some employees, it is a necessary sacrifice to preserve our education. Pension reform is an especially important issue seeing as our generation will be the ones paying for the retirement of the entire baby boomer generation. Although it’s unfortunate to have to rob from the old to give to the young, it seems just that they make few sacrifices to help us afford their social security costs.

In the broader theater of debate, there has been a serious lack of creative thinking to fix strained budgets and cut costs while maintaining a high standard of education. The bottom line is, regardless of the problems our state may be facing, any additional cuts in funding to higher education would be a huge mistake.

Higher education should not be a priority for only moral reasons. It is an extremely efficient moneymaker. An economic impact study conducted on the CSU system showed this clearly: The total spending impact of the CSU is responsible for 485,000 jobs and generates $4.9 billion in tax revenue every year. Also in 2008-2009, CSU alumni in California earned $122 billion, about $42.1 billion of which is directly attributable to their CSU degree. With all of these effects factored in, every state dollar invested generates $23 in spending. Obviously, higher education is an investment worth making, especially when our economic situation looks so bleak.

Fee increases that discourage enrollment coupled with the deteriorating quality of education threaten to damage the value and profitability of the system. There are many other deserving programs and demands on state funding, but none that I know of have proven to be a sound investment for the future. If education is our number one priority, state funding will be restored and fees allowed to fall back to their original levels. The enemy is not the CSU or the U.C. systems or even just the California state government. The adversary is anyone unwilling to make the tough choices and necessary sacrifices — financial or political — to keep education funding intact.

—Randy Wilde is an international security and conflict resolution junior.

—The views expressed in this column do not necessarily reflect the opinion of The Daily Aztec.