Category: CSU

How do you spell tuition relief?

Apparently, M-I-D-D-L-E  C-L-A-S-S  S-C-H-O-L-A-R-S-H-I-P:

From the Contra Costa Times: With the governor’s signature this week, California college students from middle-income families will soon be in line for a tuition discount. The state-funded Middle Class Scholarship will buffer tens of thousands of students from UC’s and Cal State’s frequent and unpredictable fee hikes… When the program begins in 2014 it will bring some relief to California’s middle-class families who have watched helplessly in recent years as public tuition and fees have nearly doubled since 2007. It will offer sliding-scale discounts of up to 40 percent for families who earn $150,000 or less and don’t qualify for Cal Grants, which support lower-income students. It was a separate bill signed Monday as part of the state budget… About 130,000 public university undergraduates each year will be eligible, according to the state’s estimate…

(O)bservers note that the scholarship is just another patch on the state’s education finance predicament… Even at the maximum discounted rate of 40 percent, a student pays more than in 2008-09. The scholarship covers only systemwide tuition and fees — not room and board, living expenses, textbooks or campus fees, which average nearly $20,000 a year. And, given the state’s perennial budget gyrations, the scholarship could prove an unreliable financial aid. If the governor’s May budget proposal shows a deficit, the program’s funding — $305 million when fully implemented in 2017 — could drop by as much as one third…
Full story at www.contracostatimes.com/breaking-news/ci_23607228/california-middle-class-scholarships-soon-available-college-students.

Vim and Vigor on UC Online Higher Ed

From the Sacramento Bee Capitol Alert blog:

Jerry Brown says UC, CSU leaders pledged to pursue online ed ‘vigorously’

Gov. Jerry Brown said today that he vetoed his own budget proposal to earmark $20 million for online education at the University of California and California State University systems only after leaders of those institutions assured him they would pursue online course offerings on their own.
“I had an agreement from both the segments that they would carry out online vigorously,” Brown told reporters at an event in Sacramento. “As the leader of both governing boards, I’m actively engaged with both the University of California and the Cal State.”…

Full story at http://blogs.sacbee.com/capitolalertlatest/2013/07/jerry-brown-says-uc-csu-leaders-pledged-to-pursue-online-ed-vigorously.html

Wow!  All that vigor!
[youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-t64OXKVGvk?feature=player_detailpage]

Middle-class scholarships to UC, CSU likely

But not this year!

So says the headline in the San Francisco Chronicle: [excerpt]

The “Middle-Class Scholarship” proposed by Assembly Speaker John Pérez, D-Los Angeles, would offer tuition discounts for students from families earning $80,000 to $150,000 a year. The program would start in the 2014-15 school year, with partial scholarships costing the state $107 million from its general fund. The state would increase spending on the program each year until it was fully implemented in 2017-18, at a cost of $305 million – assuming 75 percent of eligible students apply. Tuition discounts would decrease as family income rises…

Full story at http://www.sfgate.com/education/article/Middle-class-scholarships-to-UC-CSU-likely-4597581.php

Of course, there are students that might not want to wait a year:

UPDATE: The LAO was not keen on this particular plan but was not asked:
http://www.sacbee.com/2013/06/14/v-print/5496173/perez-tuition-aid-plan-not-best.html

Gov. Jerry Brown’s university plan is left unfinished in budget

That’s what the headline in the LA Times says.  It goes on to say: [excerpt]

The final spending plan does not include the governor’s proposal to tie new money for public universities to specific requirements like improving graduation rates and increasing the number of transfer students from community colleges. Nor will the plan automatically cut funding if tuition is increased. The changes emerged after negotiations with lawmakers and officials at the University of California and California State University, who resisted much of Brown’s proposal. For now, universities will simply be required to track nine different benchmarks…

Full story at http://www.latimes.com/news/local/political/la-me-pc-jerry-brown-california-universities-20130612,0,6175034.story

Some background music while you read the full article is conveniently provided below:
[youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IAAmC2QCsg4?feature=player_detailpage]

Follow Up on the Steinberg Platform

A prior post on this blog referred to the recent legislative hearing on California Senate president Darrell Steinberg’s bill that would create a “platform” for various online courses that could be taken for college credit.  At the hearing, he offered amendments to the original bill (SB 520) and was asked to come back with the written versions. The amended bill can be read below:


But are you ready for the platform?

Update: Don't tell Steinberg:
http://www.insidehighered.com/news/2013/05/02/survey-finds-presidents-are-skeptical-moocs

Update: Anyway, don't tell Steinberg unless you are sure it is him:
http://www.latimes.com/news/local/la-me-online-cheating-20130502,0,795806,full.story

Oil Tax for Higher Ed Initiative

As we have noted many times, it is very hard to get an initiative on the ballot without hiring signature-gathering firms (which will cost $1-$2 million).  And if the initiative gets on the ballot, millions more will be needed for TV ads, etc., if there is opposition.  An oil severance tax to fund higher ed would clearly have such opposition – from the oil industry. 

All that said, there is such an effort underway (as noted in prior posts): …Conceived by UC-Berkeley students, the California Modernization and Economic Development Act places a 9.5 percent tax on oil and gas extracted from California; supporters say it would bring about $2 billion of new revenue per year. Of that, about $1.2 billion would be allocated in four equal parts towards K-12 education, California Community Colleges, California State University and the University of California. Another $400 million or so would be used to provide businesses with subsidies for switching to cleaner, cheaper forms of energy, and about $300 million would go to county governments for infrastructure repair, public works projects, and funding public services…

Full article at http://www.ibabuzz.com/politics/2013/04/25/oil-severance-tax-measure-to-start-circulating/
At least there is a song to go with the effort:
Up Came Oil

Powered by mp3skull.com

Yesterday’s State Senate Hearing on Online Higher Ed Bill

A California State Senate committee held a hearing yesterday on SB 520, a bill that in its original form mandated 50 online courses at UC, CSU, and the community colleges.  The bill is being pushed by Senate President Steinberg.

At the hearing, he offered amendments setting 50 as a goal rather than a mandate and allowing “public-public” partnerships as opposed to public-private.  The latter refers to deals with private MOOC companies.  Public-public would include, for example, cross-campus courses.  He also offered an amendment that no public monies would be used for the private side of any public-private partnerships. (It’s not exactly clear what the last would mean as a practical matter since money would come from both sides and whose was whose might be hard to define.)  After the hearing, the committee asked for written versions of the amendments rather than the oral descriptions offered at the hearing.  However, it was clear that the bill would eventually move ahead.

Since the amendments were new, the various witnesses did not have detailed comments on them.  Concerns were raised by UC Academic Senate Chair Robert Powell.  There was also testimony by the chair and vice chair of the UCLA Academic Senate.  Below is a link to a video of the hearing.  The portion on this bill runs from minute 9 to minute 136 (roughly).  The UC Academic Senate testimony is at minute 25 to 30 and the UCLA portion is at minute 45 to 47.  A short description of the hearing is at:
http://www.insidehighered.com/quicktakes/2013/04/25/california-senate-panel-mulls-course-outsource
The embedded version of the video of the hearing works poorly if at all.  To see the hearing, go directly to
http://calchannel.granicus.com/MediaPlayer.php?view_id=7&clip_id=1176 (and be patient while it loads).

An easier to use link to the Steinberg and Powell portions is at
http://uclafacultyassociation.blogspot.com/2013/04/audio-of-steinberg-powell-on-higher-ed.html

Thanks, But No Thanks

Inside Higher Ed today notes that it appears that the Academic Senates of the three tiers of California public higher ed are decidedly unenthusiastic about the proposed legislation to mandate online courses under certain conditions.  Previous posts on this blog have reported on the controversy.

…Academic senate leaders from all three public higher ed systems – UC, Cal State and the California Community Colleges — now outright oppose the efforts, though their full senates have yet to take formal votes…

In particular, faculty representatives are concerned California lawmakers are preparing to hand over untold thousands of students to for-profit companies that have not proven their courses can pass muster…

Full article at http://www.insidehighered.com/news/2013/03/28/california-academic-leaders-oppose-outsourcing-plan 


The moral for state political leaders is not to pick up every seemingly-bright idea you find before checking out the consequences:

[youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h2H6qC23RPY?feature=player_detailpage]

Emisions Remissions?

UCLA co-generation plant

California’s cash-strapped public universities would save millions of dollars under legislation by Orange County state Sen. Mimi Walters, but the bill’s prospects are uncertain because it would alter a landmark global warming law beloved by environmentalists. Walters’ proposal seeks to exempt University of California and California State University campuses from the new cap-and-trade program established under the Global Warming Solutions Act of 2006, otherwise known as Assembly Bill 32 or AB32, one of the nation’s most ambitious environmental laws…

At least five UC campuses, including Irvine, UCLA and San Diego, qualify for the cap-and-trade program in 2013…

The UC system has budgeted $8 million to comply with AB32 – for just the next fiscal year.
For that much money, the UC system could accommodate another 800 students, UC Vice President Patrick Lenz told members of the Senate Budget and Fiscal Review Committee last month. He and the system later backed off those comments, saying there is “not a direct correlation” between student enrollment and the money for cap-and-trade. He also later noted in a letter to committee chairman Mark Leno, D-San Francisco, that it’s possible the system won’t have to buy any credits to cover its 2014 emissions…

Full story at http://www.ocregister.com/news/trade-501273-cap-emissions.html

The following is the amount of greenhouse gases emitted in 2011 by UC campuses covered under the AB32 cap-and-trade program. The emissions are displayed in units of metric tons of carbon dioxide equivalent.

UCLA – 205,299
UC San Diego – 160,579
UC Irvine – 69,979
UC San Francisco – 68,566
UC Davis Medical Center – 63,693
UC Davis – 62,259

Well, the emissions could be worse:
[youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EaN7xuAIjXI?feature=player_detailpage]