tuition

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Regents Meeting Coming Next Week

Byuclafaculty

The Regents are meeting March 13-14 – Wednesday-Thursday of next week.  The agenda is only partly online.  At this point it just lists topics without the supporting materials.  One March 13 item is the UCLA Health Sciences Teaching and Learning Center which we are assured won’t cost the campus a penny.  Of course, we know the Regents will carefully undertake a review of the business plan using outside independent expertise and will be monitoring the project after it is built to ensure it is a total success, just as they did, and surely will do, with the Grand Hotel: http://regents.universityofcalifornia.edu/regmeet/mar13/gb.pdf…

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More on the Tobacco Tax for UC & CSU Student Aid

Byuclafaculty

Prior posts have noted that an initiative written by a law firm with experience in electoral matters has been filed that would impose a tobacco tax to fund student aid at UC and CSU.  As previously reported, the use of the law firm suggests some serious money is involved – which would be needed to fund a petition drive and then a subsequent election campaign which tobacco interests would surely oppose. We now have the official summary text that will be seen by voters who are asked to sign the petition. The text is below, courtesy of the California Secretary…

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Tobacco Tax Initiative for UC & CSU Student Aid Advances

Byuclafaculty

Earlier posts on this blog in late December noted that an initiative had been filed to impose a tobacco tax with revenue largely earmarked for student aid at UC and CSU.  Unlike many initiatives filed by amateurs that go nowhere, this one was filed by a law firm noted for election work.  So there must be some serious funding behind it.  Whether there is enough serious money to fund a signature-gathering campaign is unclear.  In addition, a tobacco tax would attract well-funded opposition from tobacco firms.  (Remember that a  tobacco tax initiative for cancer research was narrowly defeated last June.)…

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LAO Critique of Governor’s Higher Ed Budget Proposals

Byuclafaculty

The Legislative Analysts’ Office (LAO) has a new report out critiquing the governor’s higher ed budget proposals.  It comments on his online higher ed proposals but relative to all the attention paid to that topic at the most recent Regents meeting, it appears that the LAO doesn’t see them as the solution to budget problems for higher ed)  Much of the report involves recommendations that the legislature base future funding increments on meeting performance targets.  Because most of the report deals with all three segments of higher ed, the target discussion largely is focused on concerns involving CSU and community…

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Reality Check on Online Higher Education

Byuclafaculty

Arizona State University (ASU) offers online undergrad and grad degree programs.  It is actively recruiting Californians. Click on http://asuonline.asu.edu/?utm_source=ca-asu-edu&utm_medium=ca-asu-edu&utm_campaign=california-visit If you visit this link, you will be given information in written and video format.  A sample course format is at: http://asuonline.asu.edu/how-it-works/learning-online-at-asu So what is the cost?    The ASU website offers a course calculator: https://students.asu.edu/costs  I used the calculator and entered that I was an Arizona resident, that I was seeking an online undergraduate degree, and that I would be enrolling as a freshman.  The cost per academic year was reported to be $10,792.  Of course, there are no living expenses payable…

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Magical Thinking on Online Higher Ed to Spread to Legislature

Byuclafaculty

From the Sacramento Bee Capitol Alert blog we learn that legislative Democrats are going to be educated on online higher ed: (excerpt) Senate Democrats will be gathering for a policy retreat at the Stanford Mansion today…  Democrats will be mapping strategy for the year ahead, and Capitol Alert has learned that online education guru Sal Kahn will be speaking. Kahn’s presence underscores the serious attention online education has been getting, including from Gov. Jerry Brown and Senate President Pro Tem Darrell Steinberg, as a way to educate more students for less. The University of California regents have lent their support to the idea as Brown pushes the university system…

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The Moral: It’s a Good Idea to Avoid the Rush

Byuclafaculty

From Inside Higher Ed today… Maybe it was inevitable that one of the new massive open online courses would crash. After all, MOOCs are being launched with considerable speed, not to mention hype. But MOOC advocates might have preferred the collapse of a course other than the one that was suspended this weekend, one week into instruction: “Fundamentals of Online Education: Planning and Application.” Technology and design problems are largely to blame for the course’s problems. And many students are angry that a course about online education — let alone one offered by the Georgia Institute of Technology — wouldn’t…

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California GOP pushes higher ed tuition freeze/cheap degree

Byuclafaculty

From the Sacramento Bee today:What’s a marginalized minority party to do? It’s a key question for Republican lawmakers staring down a newly enshrined Democratic supermajority. Part of the answer so far seems to be a renewed emphasis on higher education. Both Sen. Anthony Cannella, R-Ceres, and Assemblyman Jeff Gorell, R-Camarillo, have introduced a pair of bills that would freeze tuition at the University of California and California State University for the seven-year duration of the higher tax rates mandated by Proposition 30… In a written response to the budget, Republican Connie Conway, R-Tulare, called the tuition freeze bills an effort to “ensure…

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Rebenching: If you equalize, UCLA gets less than otherwise

Byuclafaculty

Inside Higher Ed today has a long piece on UC’s “rebenching” approach which would change the formula by which UC funding is allocated to the various campuses.  As the article notes, some of the disparate funding that tends to favor older campuses such as UCLA is due to the graduate/undergraduate mix.  But even if you adjust for that effect, the older campuses get more.  That fact means that if you equalize, in the end the older campuses will get less than otherwise.  You can phase it in.  But the logic is unavoidable.  Phasing it in just means that the older…

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Burning Sofas: A Lesson for the Governor on UC

Byuclafaculty

A column in today’s Sacramento Bee tells a tale about sofas with lessons for the governor.   Here is an excerpt: Gov. Jerry Brown is about to repent for a sin he didn’t know he committed in 1975. Ten months after Brown took office the first time, his administration produced a little-noticed regulation requiring that furniture sold in California comply with the strictest fire safety standard in the nation. Befitting its turgid language, the regulation came to be known as Technical Bulletin 117. Although it was supposed to save lives, another story has emerged in the intervening decades. Technical Bulletin…