The leaders of the California Community College, the California State University and the University of California systems have come together to petition policymakers in the state capitol to resist deep budgets cuts for public higher education.

CCC Chancellor Diane Woodruff, CSU Chancellor Charles Reed and UC President Robert Dynes urged Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger and the California state Legislature to provide the necessary funding in this year’s higher education budget.

“This unprecedented collaboration among our three institutions underscores the severity of the proposed cuts and their potentially devastating effects on the people of this state, now and for years to come,” said Reed. “If we want California to be competitive in the global economy, then funding for higher education needs to be a top fiscal priority.”

Together, the three systems have been told they can expect $1.2 billion less than they say they need for the fiscal year that begins July 1. If adopted in the final state budget, among other things the proposed cuts would mean severe hardship for students: Tens of thousands of qualified students will be denied a spot in college or be unable to make progress toward a degree or certificate, representatives from the UC system reported.

For the past few months, leaders and other members of the three systems have been engaged in a first-ever joint public education campaign aimed at helping the public and policymakers understand how important the state’s investment in public higher education is to California’s economy, and to the short- and long-term well being of Californians.

The proposed budget would leave the community colleges without the resources to serve more than 50,000 students next year, and both the CSU and UC systems are already over-enrolled by 10,000 and 4,000 students, respectively. CSU has already been forced to turn away 10,000 qualified students for the coming fall semester, and although UC admitted a record number of students for this fall, it may not be able to increase enrollment at all the following year. Student fee increases also will be considered by the governing boards of the UC and CSU systems.