Holders of honorary doctorate degrees — Maya Angelou, Stephen Colbert, and Hunter S. Thompson — have all enjoyed being called “Doctor.” And none more proud of the title than Dr. Maya Angelou, who has no post-secondary school degrees at all. You’d never guess it because she insists on being called Doctor at every event she attends.

Now she’s put her doctoring skills to use and come up with a unique solution to California’s budget crisis. Honorary Doctorate Degrees.

In the past two years, $18 billion has been cut from the California’s education budget, according to State Superintendent, Jack O’Connell. Millions of high-school and college age students will go without degrees, unless the state finds a way through the morass. Like Dr Angelou says, “You think some dumb-ass kid has nothing to offer America. Think again. America needs doctors. All kinds of doctors.”

At a sit-down in Sacramento, Gov. Arnold Schwarznegger served tea and puff pastries to the beloved poetess. Together they hammered out a budget of $7 million — seven dollars apiece for the high-quality screen-printed documents, to be presented complete with real glass frames.

One million honorary degrees to be issued in June of 2010. This represents a savings of $10.5 billion.