News

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Important: Effect of DC vs. DB Pensions at Universities on Retirement

Byuclafaculty

The article below indicates the problems universities have with defined contribution pension plans (such as TIAA-CREF) which provide no incentives to retire. UC’s defined benefit pension provides a strong incentive to retire for long-service employees.=======================Stanford University confronts the graying of academia By Lisa M. Krieger San Jose Mercury-Newslkrieger@mercurynews.com Posted: 07/10/2010 08:00:00 PM PDTUpdated: 07/10/2010 11:29:02 PM PDThttp://www.contracostatimes.com/news/ci_15480908?source=rss&nclick_check=1 Note: The original article includes a graphic. Click on the url above. Many workers yearn for retirement — the goodbye parties, the golf course, maybe even a gold watch. But Stanford University has the opposite problem: Nobody wants to leave. Hoping to create…

State Books Balanced for 2009-10 (Well Sort of)

Byuclafaculty

The latest and last cash report for the fiscal year 2009-10 that ended June 30 has been released by the state controller. You can find it at: http://www.sco.ca.gov/Files-ARD/CASH/fy0910_june.pdf To cut to the chase, revenues were around $87 billion and disbursements were around $87 billion. (I have excluded inflows of non-revenues which are mainly grabs from various funds and reserves outside the general fund.) So a rough balance was achieved. Now, it is true that the revenues included the outcomes of tax increases that are scheduled to expire in the future. And it is true that gimmicks such as moving the…

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UC Merced med school? Now?

Byuclafaculty

Support for UC Merced med school grows: Valley groups want program despite tough times. Posted at 12:52 AM on Friday, Jul. 09, 2010By Barbara Anderson / The Fresno Bee A proposed medical school at the UC Merced has overwhelming support in the San Joaquin Valley, with a growing coalition pushing to get money to build the school in tough economic times, a report released today shows. “The Valley has embraced this project, this initiative,” said Bryn Forhan, a Fresno businesswoman and chairwoman of the Valley Coalition for UC Merced Medical School. At community meetings held last year in nine counties…

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Almost 2/3 Favor Abolishing 2/3 on State Budget

Byuclafaculty

A proposition (Prop 25) on the November 2010 ballot will allow voters to choose whether to abolish the 2/3 vote requirement to pass a state budget in both houses of the legislature. Almost 2/3 of voters support a simple majority vote on the budget according to the latest Field Poll. You can examine the results (including data on voter attitudes towards other items on the ballot) at: http://field.com/fieldpollonline/subscribers/Rls2342.pdf If you really want to look at the details, go to:http://media.sacbee.com/smedia/2010/07/08/16/0709rls.source.prod_affiliate.4.pdf Voters from both parties support abolishing the 2/3 rule on budgets, although support is stronger among Democrats. The 2/3 requirement on…

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Database on Higher Ed Including UCLA

Byuclafaculty

The database described below should get an award for being user-unfriendly. However, it does include UCLA and I did succeed (somewhat) in obtaining some data from it. I invite anyone with more patience to see what might be uncovered. Follow the directions as best you can. The database is at: http://www.tcs-online.org/Reports/Report.aspx An excerpt from a description from Inside Higher Ed:Follow the Money July 9, 2010 In a sea of often bewildering data about college spending practices, a small island of clarity is emerging. In conjunction with its third annual “Trends in College Spending” report, released today, the Delta Project on…

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Competition with the Private Universities & Endowments

Byuclafaculty

A recent working paper from the National Bureau of Economic Research suggests that private universities react asymmetrically to shocks to their endowments. In particular, they overreact to negative shocks by cutting their operating budgets. That may suggest that, in the aftermath of their recent big financial losses, the privates were not as aggressive in raiding UC as they could have been but also that this effect is likely to wear off. That is, the endowment-loss effect may have shielded UC for a time, but we cannot count on it continuing. Below is a summary of the paper: Why I Lost…

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Governor’s Pension Symposium of July 8

Byuclafaculty

Governor Schwarzenegger ran a public pension symposium on July 8. It was essentially a panel of academics, legislators and former legislators (including former assembly speaker Willie Brown), local officials, past CalPERS members, and academics. You can see a video of the roughly 1-hour symposium by going to the governor’s website: www.gov.ca.gov and clicking on “multimedia.” The symposium concentrated on CalPERS and, to a lesser extent, CalSTRS. UCRS was mentioned in passing at roughly minute 39, but was not explicitly discussed. In particular, the important $2-for-$1 issue that separates UCRS from other public pensions in California was not discussed. (Approximately $2…

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Quality Matters

Byuclafaculty

Unusual Research Finding From Nazi Policies at Universities http://www.insidehighered.com/news/2010/07/08/nazi July 8, 2010 An economist’s research into the Nazi regime’s dismissals of Jewish mathematics professors in the 1930’s has led him to conclude that in Ph.D. supervision, big is beautiful. Between 1933 and 1934, about 18 per cent of all mathematics professors in Germany were stripped of their posts by the Nazis, including some of the most eminent scholars of the day. Fabian Waldinger, assistant professor in the department of economics at the University of Warwick, in Britain, studied the impact of those dismissals on the mathematicians’ doctoral students. He found…

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Post-Employment Benefits session audios

Byuclafaculty

The UC Post-Employment Benefits Taskforce was hosted by the UCLA Academic Senate on 5-4-10. Below are links to audios (videos with a still picture) of that session. The audios are in 10 parts. Parts 1-8 run about 14 minutes each. Parts 9 and 10 run about 8 minutes each. You can access these audios at the following addresses: PEB audios 5-4-10 Part 1 Part 2 Part 3 Part 4 Part 5 Part 6 Part 7 Part 8 Part 9 Part 10 (end)