California is one of several states to have imposed mandatory furloughs on various state level employees in order to reduce the financial burden on the state budget during a severe cash crunch. In fact, this is probably the first time ever that several states, including California, have been forced to impose these compulsory furloughs on educators.

In California the compulsory furlough is for two days a month. Effectively, what this is means is that if an educator is teaching 20 days in a month, out of which 2 days he or she will have to take a furlough, teaching time it cut by 10%. The net result is that a college student who is already paying full tuition, ends up receiving 10% less instruction overall.

Furloughs in education are an absurd measure from the point of view of a student. This situation is clearly against the welfare of students. The quality of education will be compromised if educators do not have the minimum necessary time it requires to follow through on curriculum. The loss of teaching time may not be visible in the short run, but if this situation continues for a prolonged period of time, it can have adverse affects on the quality of college students graduating from California’s public institutions.

The loss of a student’s instruction time is probably much larger than the economic benefit of the educator’s furlough. It is possible that the aggregate economic loss over a number of years, in terms of the students’ performance in jobs and business, may far exceed the petty savings achieved in the short run.

Compromising students’ education may not be a really smart way to boost the economy. Furthermore, apart from the bad economic sense that it makes in the long run, there is also the question of unfairness towards the college students who are not state employees, and who should not be made to suffer for years of fiscal irresponsibility on the part of California lawmakers.

By paying the same amount of fees, college students receive less instructional time.  That probably makes them the only community in the whole state that is making a sacrifice without receiving any state salary or benefits.