UCLA History: UES 60 Years Ago
UCLA’s University Elementary School in 1950.(UCLA History Project)
UCLA’s University Elementary School in 1950.(UCLA History Project)
In a farewell interview with the LA Times editorial board, Governor Schwarzenegger covered a range of topics but a couple of minutes were devoted to public higher education. He argued against legislative control of higher ed including UC and defended high faculty pay as necessary in the marketplace. And he regretted recent tuition increases but said they were necessary given the economic circumstances. The full article is at http://opinion.latimes.com/opinionla/2010/12/arnold-schwarzenegger-exit-interview.html An audio excerpt on higher ed can be heard below:
Another cautionary tale about self sufficiency and tuition hikes in a political context today, this one from Quebec, courtesy of Inside Higher Ed. McGill decided to raise its MBA tuition from C$1700/year (clearly a subsidized rate) to C$29,500, using a self-sufficient model. [US$1.00 = C$1.02 currently.] As prior posts have noted, the UCLA Anderson School has been pursuing a self sufficiency model. But McGill’s tuition hike is huge compared to anything Anderson is considering, in part because Anderson’s tuition is already in the ballpark of where McGill wants to be. The Quebec provincial government first threatened to take away an…
Yet another reminder that what the Regents did at their December meeting may not turn out to be the last word. Past posts on this blog have noted that via ballot initiative, UC could be swept into some general change in all public-sector retirement plans. Here is another editorial complaining about UC’s changes in its retirement plans. Retirement ruin? Riverside Press-Enterprise Editorial, 12-20-10, Excerpt A university system that faces repeated budget squeezes cannot justify siphoning money away from education and into lavish pension benefits. The University of California has to rein in the escalating costs of its retirement plan. And…
Entrance to state normal school in 1914 that later became the Vermont Avenue campus of UCLA (from UCLA History Project)
Yet another reminder that the pension/retirement issue at UC did not end with the December Regents meeting below: UC president’s happy talk not helpful (excerpt) San Diego Union-Tribune Editorial December 20, 2010 Like so many public agencies in the Golden State, the University of California has promised vastly more in retirement benefits for its employees than it can afford. Taxpayers should find the UC system’s woes particularly appalling because of this fact: For two decades, the state and UC employees didn’t put aside any money at all toward future pension costs, leading to a current overall shortfall of $13.4 billion….
Inside Higher Ed today points to a conflict in Virginia in which Virginia Commonwealth University raised tuition and the governor proposes to cut its state appropriation by half of the added tuition revenue. One can look at this take-away as a punishment for raising tuition, as the article below does. Or one can consider it to be a way in which the state effectively grabs some tuition money for its own budgetary purposes. Your choice. Either way, this development is a cautionary note about the politics of tuition increases at public universities. The article: McDonnell punishes VCU for tuition increase…
Although Jackie Robinson is best known as a major league baseball player – as per the YouTube song embedded below – while at UCLA he played several sports including football. [youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r-7Ac2LVVYU&fs=1&hl=en_US]
The blog Calbuzz.com pointed me to two items, both related to the state budget. One is the cartoon on the right, which suggests the political challenge for incoming-Governor Brown. [If you can’t make out the captions, go http://www.calbuzz.com/2010/12/swap-meet-jerry-and-santa-meet-landslide-harris/ and scroll down until you see the cartoon.] The other is an article that appeared last week pointing to another aspect of the challenge. The two budget-related meetings Brown has had (see earlier posts) – plus statements during the election campaign – suggest that his strategy is to get the legislature to pass a budget with no tax increases that would have…
Photo from the UCLA History Project, probably from the early 1940s An interesting video of a former UCLA student reflecting on being in Schoenberg’s class is available below:[youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dt56WVygpBs&fs=1&hl=en_US]