Read Ciara’s take on why BART is vital to the Bay Area community.

As a student in California, I am well aware that our public universities and community colleges are suffering from a significant lack of funding. While companies like Chevron pocket heavy tax breaks our community colleges, especially those in already under-resourced districts, are left behind.

The recent discussions of Proposition 13 have completely ignored its devastating and lasting impact on our schools, especially for marginalized students.

Yes, Proposition 13 is vital to the senior community of homeowners, but Proposition 13 is also unfair to them and others, as well. In fact, Proposition 13 has been exploited by the community of big businesses while also harming the senior community and others.

I am proud to use the tools I have been taught at UC Berkeley to engage in informed activism, join the picket line and support the graduate student instructors who formed the foundation of my learning experience at Cal.

Student workers are the backbone of the UC system. As a fourth-year student at UC Berkeley, I’ve worked closely with almost 30 graduate student instructors during my time as a student and, frankly, the work they put in is the only reason I’ve been academically successful.

“Newsom’s College Corps program does not strike me as a progressive move to support students get through college but a backhanded way of telling us we are not working hard enough. “

“Struggling students should not be expected to fill in these resource gaps on their own. The mental health crisis is not just a Gen-Z issue. “

“In a global pandemic that has proved to be volatile, removing funding that supports vaccinations is deeply inequitable and spells public health disaster.”

“While I applaud Phil Levin for his detailed research on property tax disparities, the most egregious aspect of Proposition 13 is being totally ignored.”

The unspoken reality of why many cities like Alameda are putting bonds and tax measures on the ballot.

As a student who attends UC Berkeley, I am absolutely dismayed that Berkeley residents are willing to deny so many students the chance to attend this university.

This news is appreciated, especially since standardized testing already has its own fair share of complaints outside of equity. This decision by the CSU will break down another barrier to accessing higher education.

Prop. 13 was created to keep the elderly in the homes. In reality, large corporations are benefiting the most. There is no justification for that.

We badly need funds for education and Measure AA is a start, but we need much more than these local revenue efforts can provide.

We need big businesses, which for decades have benefited from property tax loopholes, to step up and pay their fair share.

By limiting our public university system to only those who can afford it, we’re erasing the diverse voices and perspectives that bring so much value to our campuses.

There really needs to be a change with Prop. 13 in these coming years if we don’t want to backslide, not just with our taxation policies but also with our response to environmental disasters.

The passage of Proposition 15 will lead to the closing of a long-standing tax loophole corporations have used to escape paying their fair share of property taxes in California.

Small businesses face difficulties today, but rent increases aren’t one of them.

California has the opportunity to close this corporate tax loophole…