Editor's Note: SDSU History Professor Lawrence Baron, former executive director of the Lipinsky Institute for Judaic Studies, has been satirizing the situation at his university in the wake of budget cuts. Two weeks ago he proposed (with tongue firmly in cheek) that the school become part of the state prison system as California seems to put a higher priority on keeping people in jail than in educating them.

By Lawrence Baron

First day of classes in the Fall
We stood in front of Hepner Hall
Protesting to a Springteen tune
Cuts leading to our school’s ruin.
Mourn for the CSU.
Mourn for the CSU.
Mourn for the CSU.
Mourn for the CSU. 

Too many students in each course.
Legislators feeling no remorse.
Lecturers have been laid off
So the deficit can be paid off.

Mourn for the CSU.
The state has scorn for the CSU.
Mourn for the CSU.
The state has scorn for the CSU. 

Fees increased. salaries dropped.
Furloughs could not be stopped.
Told to teach one tenth less
To make a dent in the fiscal mess.
Mourn for the CSU.
And for the UC too. 
What can we do
When the state betrays the CSU?

We didn’t break the banks.
We didn’t build the tanks.
We didn’t issue subpar loans
We didn’t repossess your homes.
If you’ were born in recent years 
Maybe you should shed some tears,
Economy’s getting in the way
Of education for a brighter day. 
Mourn for the CSU..
Mourn for the CSU.
Mourn for the CSU.
Mourn for the CSU.