As an adviser for ethnic studies students, I am acutely aware of the impacts the proposed state budget cuts for education will have on hard-working students and dedicated faculty.

It is tragic for me to see students prevented from achieving their goals because of the skewed priorities and the wholesale lack of leadership of our current state and federal elected representatives—in both political parties.

One of my students, an exceptional African American community activist, may have to abandon her dream to attend graduate school in order to seek dead-end jobs to support her family.

Another student, a talented American Indian scholar who wants to return to her reservation as a health educator, is the first in her extended family to attend college.

The classes she needs to graduate next semester have been cut from the proposed schedule and she does not know how she will be able to afford graduate school.

We have an ethical responsibility to retain our most vulnerable students.

The unkindest cut of all severs young people from the future they deserve and the important contributions they can make to our society.

As the United States government continues to spend over $3 billion a week in Iraq; as we witness widespread corruption in military and corporate contracts; as oil companies report record profits; as absentee farmers reap astronomical government subsidies; as indigenous lands are stripped of life; as the prison-industrial complex profits from the incarceration of our youth, our students cannot enroll in the classes they need to matriculate or graduate and cannot get the units they have to maintain for financial aid.

Achieving a bachelor’s degree in California’s public universities in four years is becoming a thing of the past.

How did we get here? We failed to become engaged in the political process and relinquished fundamental decisions about the health and welfare of our communities to politicians and administrators who place personal ambition ahead of service to their constituents.

We elected representatives who prey upon our fears and take full advantage of our apathy. We acted only when the storm hit and did not prepare for its eventuality.

It is no coincidence that the power structure is attacking education, and consequently, our ability as a society to think critically and act decisively. Real democracy depends on an informed and activated populace.

Access to education should be a human right, and for the diverse population of students at SF State, as elsewhere, funding for our schools is a matter of social justice.

Students throughout California have shown courageous leadership fighting the cuts and finding sources of revenue and need all of our help to act now to protect our collective prospects.

We can invest in your future by contacting the governor and ALL your elected representatives with a personal statement about the impacts of the proposed cuts in education.