State Support for Colleges

All successful business leaders know that, even when budgets must be trimmed, they must maintain research and development spending. To cut R&D; would jeopardize the company’s long-term health. Yet Wilson’s proposed state budget does exactly that: It slashes, by 7%, funding for the University of California--the state’s R&D; institution.

After last year’s devastating $225-million cut, this additional $180-million hatchet job seriously hampers the UC’s ability to provide tomorrow’s top-quality leaders in business, science, arts, medicine and education, and its ability to furnish the state with competitive products and advances in the arts and sciences.

Certainly, the UC cannot be fully protected in times of such fiscal straits. But these monumental cuts represent an unwise, short-term solution.

DAVID GOLDSTEIN-SHIRLEY

Irvine