Californians can be heartened by Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger's bold call for a constitutional amendment to ensure our state spends more to provide higher education to its people than to imprison them.</p><p>This common-sense reordering of funding priorities, if successful, may be the most significant accomplishment for California since the invention of the silicon chip.</p><p>The simple logic of providing our young people the best possible chance to succeed in this world -- so they aren't drawn to a life of criminal behavior -- is easy to see.</p><p>Yet somehow the equation has flipped over the years resulting in an increase in spending to lock people away rather than to unlock their potential.</p><p>This has to change.</p><p>It's not just a matter of fairness.</p><p>The great success California has enjoyed in so many fields is largely due to our world-renowned public university system.</p><p>For decades, California's high school graduates have enrolled in the University of California system to get a quality, affordable education and prepare themselves to be productive members of society.</p><p>Innovation, entrepreneurial genius, economic growth and prosperity quickly followed.</p><p>But as the Legislature gradually cut funding to our university system in favor of our prison system, the cost of an education for students and their families has skyrocketed.</p><p>Accordingly, more and more young people have been denied a chance to get the education they need to establish themselves on solid ground.</p><p>We are rapidly losing our scientific, industrial and cultural edge by underfunding the very system that made us successful.</p><p>I encourage all Californians to get behind the governor's efforts to restore common sense to our funding priorities.</p><p>By giving our youth the hope and opportunity that made our state the envy of the world, we can build a stronger society, create more quality jobs, contribute to a strengthened economy, rekindle innovation and ensure a brighter future for all.</p><p><i>Steve Kang is chancellor of UC Merced.</i>