So it looks like there's going to be more qualified students going directly to the University of California if the budget is approved. (sorry about the link that requires mind-sucking registration to see)This new budget, which was reached yesterday and has yet to be formally approved in the Assembly and the State Senate, will use borrowing rather than new taxes, fees and/or levies to bring it into balance this fiscal year. Sound familiar? It should, it's awfully similar to what the hated Gray Davis did last year.

How does this all affect me? Considering that I am not going to the University of California?

For one thing, not having all those students crowding into Community Colleges for their first two years of school means that LA Valley College is no longer under as much financial pressure as it was when it was expecting a flood of Guaranteed Transfer Option students who in spite of qualifying for University of California or California State University freshman admissions were shunted into the Community College system for their first two years of school. This means that they are less pressed to find "edge cases" like mine to kick off the Financial Aid rolls.

This new budget is a triumph of shadow and artifice over substance. What the State of California needs is new sources of revenue, not more debt to service. Restoring the two upper state tax brackets that were eliminated by Governor Pete Wilson, then reestablished by the same Governor during a similar downturn, would go a long way to balancing the budget and not still leave us $20 Billion in the hole in postponed, not retired debt. The ultimate solution to our budget woes is the legalization and taxation of the most lucrative cash crop in California, but of course, that is a solution that dare not speak its name.