California Tomorrow FellowshipsThe Angelides Plan to Strengthen California's CompetitivenessAs Governor, Phil Angelides will strengthen California's economic competitiveness by awarding scholarships to young Californians who pursue college degrees in science, engineering, and mathematics. California is not keeping up in educating scientists and engineers. In the second half of the last century, California and the nation built a strong economy on a foundation of investment in scientific research and technology and in the people who pioneer at the frontiers of knowledge. The scientists, engineers, and mathematicians who graduated from California universities drove the innovation that created Silicon Valley and gave birth to new industries like personal computers, biotechnology, and computer animation. All Californians benefited from their ingenuity, as their products improved people's lives and their industries fueled growth across all sectors of the state's economy. But as a National Academies of Science panel warned last year in their report, Rising Above the Gathering Storm, “the scientific and technical building blocks of our economic leadership are eroding at a time when many other nations are gathering strength.” Nations around the world are providing more of their young people with scientific and technical educations, and creating centers of scientific research and technological innovation to compete with the United States. But America and California are not keeping pace. A generation ago, the United States ranked second among all nations in the proportion of young adults who had earned undergraduate degrees in natural sciences or engineering. Today, the United States has fallen to 20th in the share of young people who earn science degrees. For example, only about 6 percent of U.S. undergraduates study engineering, about half the rate in Europe, and California graduates engineers at below the national average. In 2004, California colleges awarded 6,754 B.S. degrees in engineering; South Korea, a country with a population only one third larger than California, graduated 56,000 engineers. President Bush and Governor Schwarzenegger are taking California in the wrong direction In the face of the global science challenge, President Bush and Governor Schwarzenegger are driving California in the wrong direction. More than any other president in history, Bush has turned his back on science. Despite Bush's rhetoric about the need to invest in research and train more students in science and mathematics, his budget actually proposes to reduce total federal spending for science and technology, and he recently signed legislation cutting $12 billion from the student loan program, making college more expensive for a half million California students and their families. In his first budget, Governor Schwarzenegger cut research funding at the University of California. He was the first governor in the last four decades to propose turning qualified students away from the University of California (UC) and California State University (CSU), telling 22,000 young people who had done all the work and made all the grades that there was no room for them at our college campuses. And Schwarzenegger has raised the cost of a UC degree by nearly $5,000 and pushed up fees for graduate students even more, by 32 percent. These actions put California's future prosperity at risk. In the fluid, global economy of the 21st century, businesses will look to locate their research and development operations in places where they can hire men and women who have the knowledge and technical skills they need. In decades past, when the United States and California dominated technical fields, they could count on importing talent. But in an era where new clusters of scientific and technological skill are emerging around the world, luring others to come here is no longer a sure thing. If California and America are to lead the world in innovation and create good jobs for our children, we must educate more of our own young people in scientific and technical disciplines. The Angelides Plan to award California Tomorrow Fellowships will take California in the right direction. In the report Rising Above the Gathering Storm, the National Academies panel recommended a national program of 100,000 scholarships to draw more students into science, engineering, and mathematics. But it is clear that California cannot wait for the Bush administration and Congress to act on the panel's recommendation. As Governor, Phil Angelides will create a program to award California Tomorrow Fellowships to as many as 10,000 California residents a year who are pursuing an undergraduate degree in science, mathematics, or engineering. The California Tomorrow Fellowships will provide up to $10,000 per recipient for eligible expenses (tuition, fees, books, laboratory fees) not covered by financial aid the student otherwise receives based on need. The Fellowships, to be awarded on a competitive basis, will encourage more high school students to take rigorous courses to prepare for scientific studies and lead more of our most talented young people to undertake science, mathematics, and engineering majors. The Fellowships will honor the achievement and ambition of prospective young scientists, just as athletes are now honored. They will help California reach the goal Phil Angelides will set as Governor to increase by 50 percent the number of B.S. degrees awarded in California each year in science, mathematics, and engineering, lifting the number from 20,000 to 30,000 a year. The California Tomorrow Fellowships will cost a total of $100 million a year when fully phased in - with the state putting up half the cost and the other half coming from the private sector, which will benefit from having more technically trained graduates. As Governor, Phil Angelides will work with the private sector to establish the California Tomorrow Fellowships, and the state will match the contributions of California businesses and foundations. » Click here to read more about California Tomorrow Fellowships.
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