Why Stockton State will just exacerbate Stockton’s current problems
Not much has really gone on lately, (Oh shit! Wind and rain! Run for your lives!) so we haven’t had much to write about. Luckily we have Mike Fitzgerald and his crazy jumps in logic to fall back on.
We’d link to the column but it’s paywalled and not really worth using one of your allotted monthly views on. Basically, his argument is that Stockton’s lack of a public, 4-year university is limiting the local job opportunities for Stockton’s best and brightest.
The rest of the column focuses on whether or not CSU-Stanislaus’ Stockton satellite campus is trying to pull out of Stockton (They’re not. Plus, pulling out never works). We’ll ignore that part since the only basis for his claim is that someone got fired and the number of students are down during a traditionally down enrollment period. Instead, we’ll tackle his theory that the missing Stockton State University is the reason we can’t the smart kids in town. Naturally, his claim/theory is total bullshit.
Before we continue, we should note that we think a public 4-year university is a fine idea. We’re not as stoked about it as others, but we aren’t anti-Stockton State. Its completion just won’t be the watershed moment everyone seems to think it’s going to be. Having a public university doesn’t mean we “made it” as a city. It doesn’t legitimize us at all. One bit. Ever. It’s just a fucking school. We’d still be Stockton.
Again, we’d love to have one. But not having one doesn’t make that much of a difference outside of the handful of local students that choose to stay in Stockton an extra 4 years. And that’s the big issue, keeping those educated students around after getting that fancy California public school education.
Unless we make them professors, a new public university is going to do jack shit to keep Stockton’s best and brightest around. For one, it’s not like local students are clamoring to stay in Stockton for their higher education. Nobody chooses to go to Delta, they go because they have to.
The problem isn’t that they don’t have educational opportunities, the problem is we give them no reason to stay. Stockton’s youth grow up in a community that virtually shuns them in exchange for family friendly “safe” shit that appeals to people with money old enough to vote. So they go elsewhere as soon as possible, have a kick ass time at college, and harbor bad memories about boring ass Stockton and the dumb decisions its leaders make.
How do we accomplish instilling civic pride in the younger demographic? Honestly, I don’t know. I don’t understand kids these days. But shit like closing the only downtown teen night club (Da Candy Shop) without giving its patrons any alternative, followed by trying to craft a law to prevent them from kicking it in their new hang spot (Janet Leigh Plaza, and again without offering them any alternatives) probably doesn’t send the best message.
Sure, Stockton’s entertainment scene has grown leaps and bounds over the past couple years (not that our paper’s entertainment section reflects that), but even something as simple as playing music was a pain in the ass until last year’s whole Maxim’s thing.
The message to Stockton and it’s youth has been clear for decades. It’s been the same since I was a kid growing up here, if you don’t have money, you don’t matter. And kids don’t have money. You know who else doesn’t have any money? College students. Especially ones that can’t afford a private university. Building a public university in Stockton would just put another couple thousand kids in a city that caters to everybody but them. You can’t foster civic pride or collegiate pride when someone’s best memories from both college and high school (I know, teenagers drink, shocker) are getting shitfaced to forget the fact that you’re stuck in a town that doesn’t give a shit about you.
So for all of those asking “Where’s that Stockton State University?” (I’m looking at you Andy), the answer is we don’t deserve a Stockton State yet. We have two colleges now and we’ve done jack shit (aside from those kick ass Pub Crawls) to really engage that student body. Until we give Stockton’s brightest young minds a reason to care about Stockton, they’re going to continue leaving for greener pastures. Building a makeshift college out of an abandoned mental hospital isn’t going to accomplish that.
