First, the state let's Enron and a few others rip us off with their electric "deregulation" fiasco, now I find our system of higher education is being sacrificed for the benefit of a small group of overweight hogs that call themselves the California State University Administration. As a Cal State alumnus, and a California state taxpayer, I am am appalled at this gross waste of my tax dollars.

With so much of the CSU budget going into the pockets of so few, it's no wonder the educational institution I was so proud to have graduated from has sunk to such low levels. About 25 years ago, CSU was touted as possibly the finest institution of higher education on the North American continent, rivaling the caliber of higher education in Europe, Japan, Korea and other industrialized nations. Now, I'm hearing horror stories about under-paid and over-worked faculty and (under) staff(ing) at campuses throughout the system. Tenured professors are no longer being hired, students are not getting the attention and quality of education like they did when I was a student.

CSU now appears to have been reduced to no more than a system of four-year community colleges, rather than the top-rate university system I remember. In fact, it's a joke-the laughing stock of the world rather than one of the world's leading educational institutions.

The reason? Chancellor Reed and the state legislature apparently think fattening a few well-dressed hogs in the system's administration is more important than providing a quality, accessable higher education in California!

This California taxpayer has a question for these fools-WHY? Why am I and all other state taxpayers being forced to devote so much of our state's CSU budget into the hands of so few-at the expense of new generations of students, indeed, in the face of a rapidly growing student population that deserves the same quality of education I received when I was there? So few getting so much at the expense of everyone else-THIS is what I pay taxes for?

I don't know what everyone's problem is when it comes to the CSU budget-this taxpayer can easily see where cuts need to be made in the CSU budget-LOTS of them-CSU's Administration!