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By David Magallanes • Guest contributor

Last week I happened to overhear a conversation on a local college campus as I walked past two young adult students. It appeared to me that the man and a female classmate (or acquaintance) were discussing their futures and the solution to a dilemma. The young man said to the woman, “We have to get out of California. It just costs too much to live here.”

Unfortunately, this isn’t the first time I’ve heard this kind of comment on a college campus. As they become educated, our children and grandchildren develop an acute awareness that the challenge of thriving in our state, and particularly in our region here in coastal Southern California, is daunting.

Although it’s being celebrated that taxes have been cut, and reported that unemployment is essentially non-existent and that “wages are rising,” our college and university students are graduating with massive loan debt and rising inflation, which tempers the exuberance over rising wages, which in turn discourages young people and the less-affluent from even attempting to keep up here where we live, a virtual seaside “paradise” that is the envy of the rest of the country. The more entrepreneurial young people are aware that California is known to be a “challenging environment” for new and established businesses. It’s easy to understand young people’s reluctance to start building a life in this economically hostile environment when we consider the added woes of commuting to our jobs in heavy traffic as well as the costs of housing and raising a family.

We who are older may have “gotten ours” when getting it was relatively easy—when housing was reasonable and education was cheap.

But the newer generations no longer have those advantages, and so they reluctantly decide to leave behind all that they’ve known in the pursuit of happiness—or at least economic viability.

— David Magallanes is a writer, speaker and professor of mathematics.

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Huyendo de California

Por David Magallanes • Columnista invitado

La semana pasada escuché por casualidad una conversación en el campus de un colegio local cuando pasé junto a dos jóvenes estudiantes adultos. Me pareció que el hombre y una compañera de clase (o tal vez una amiga) estaban platicando sobre su futuro y la solución para un dilema. El joven le dijo a la señorita: “Tenemos que salirnos de California. Simplemente cuesta un dineral vivir aquí”.

Desafortunadamente, esta no es la primera vez que escucho este tipo de comentarios en un campus universitario. A medida que se vayan educando académicamente, nuestros hijos y nietos desarrollan una aguda conciencia de que el reto de prosperar en nuestro estado, y particularmente en nuestra región aquí en el sur de California, es abrumador.

Aunque se celebra la reducción de los impuestos, y nos informan que el desempleo es esencialmente inexistente y que “los salarios están subiendo”, nuestros estudiantes universitarios se están graduando con enormes deudas crediticias y una inflación creciente, lo que atempera la exuberancia frente al aumento de los salarios, lo que a su vez desanima a los jóvenes y a los menos pudientes incluso de intentar mantenerse aquí donde vivimos, en un “paraíso” virtual junto al mar que es la envidia del resto del país. Los jóvenes más emprendedores son conscientes de que se le conoce a California como un “entorno desafiante” para negocios nuevos y establecidos. Es fácil entender la renuencia de los jóvenes a comenzar a construir una vida en este ambiente económicamente hostil cuando consideramos los problemas adicionales de tráfico pesado en las carreteras rumbo a nuestros trabajos, así como los costos de la vivienda y de la crianza de una familia.

Nosotros que somos mayores tal vez pudimos haber “agarrado lo nuestro” cuando obtenerlo era relativamente fácil, cuando la vivienda era razonable y la educación superior barata.

Pero las generaciones más nuevas ya no tienen esas ventajas, por lo que deciden a regañadientes dejar atrás todo lo que hayan conocido en busca de la felicidad—o al menos de la viabilidad económica.

— David Magallanes es un escritor, orador y profesor de matemáticas.

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