UC budget crisis

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Winners and Losers

The LA Times has a story today about California students who might otherwise attend a UC or CSU going instead to out-of-state public colleges.  The chart above comes from that story which is at:http://www.latimes.com/news/local/la-me-out-of-state-20120604,0,1974227,full.story There is an odd twist which the story doesn’t pick up.  If UC pulls in more out-of-staters – who pay a premium – and more Californians go out of state, from the perspective of university budgets on both sides of the California border, there is a budgetary win-win. Of course, from the viewpoint of California students, the situation is a loss compared to the past when the…

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Weekend Cheer from the New York Times

California Cuts Threaten the Status of Universities Jennifer Medina, 6/1/12, NY Times Class sizes have increased, courses have been cut and tuition has been raised — repeatedly. Fewer colleges are offering summer classes. Administrators rely increasingly on higher tuition from out-of-staters. And there are signs it could get worse: If a tax increase proposed by Gov. Jerry Brown is not approved this year, officials say they will be forced to consider draconian cuts like eliminating entire schools or programs.  For generations, the University of California system — home to such globally renowned institutions as Berkeley and U.C.L.A. — has been…

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Listen to Updated and Complete Audio of May 16 Regents Afternoon Session

Our earlier post of the May 16 Regents meeting did not include the full afternoon session.  Readers of this blog may recall that the meeting was disrupted in the morning and thus created uncertainty as to when the afternoon session would resume.  The Regents cleared the room and went into closed session elsewhere.  As a result, yours truly – who was recording from the live stream – did not know when the afternoon session would begin. [And a repeat of question made several times on this blog before: If the Regents can live-stream and record their sessions, why can’t they…

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UCLA Legislative Assembly to Review Anderson Self-Supporting MBA Proposal

On June 7th, the Legislative Assembly will be taking up an appeal filed by faculty members of the Anderson Graduate School of Management regarding the Graduate Council’s rejection of a proposal to convert the “regular” MBA program to a self-supporting basis. In the Academic Senate letter transmitting this decision to the Chancellor, it is reported that “the MBA proposal in particular revealed significant and deep divisions of opinion within the Senate faculty regarding the advisability of converting programs, and in particular a ‘cornerstone’ program, to self-supporting status. The AGSM faculty voted overwhelmingly in favor of the proposal, the school’s FEC…

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The UC Budget in the May Revise: Allusion Leads to Illusion

The Legislative Analyst has released a summary of its recommendations regarding UC and CSU reflecting the governor’s May Revise budget proposal.  Below, in italics are excerpts related to pension funding for UC. As noted in prior blog posts, in January, the governor designated a sum of $90 million which he said could be used (or not) for UC pension funding.  The problem with that approach is that UC has always been free to allocate what it gets from the state for the pension.  By alluding to use for the pension, the governor triggered a recommendation from the Leg Analyst that…

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UC-Berkeley Chancellor Protests Proposed Constitutional Amendment Pending in Legislature Capping Out-of-State Enrollment

(Any thoughts from UCLA about this issue?) Media Release from UC-Berkeley Below: Chancellor expresses concerns about proposed constitutional amendment Public Affairs, UC-Berkeley, May 24, 2012 A message from Chancellor Birgeneau On May 16, California state Sen. Michael Rubio introduced a proposed amendment to the state’s constitution that would restrict the enrollment of out-of-state and international students on University of California campuses to 10 percent of undergraduate enrollment. If cleared for the ballot by both houses of the Legislature and passed by voters this November, Senate Constitutional Amendment 22 would take effect in the fall of 2013. Its provisions would mandate…

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Former Chancellor Young Calls for Consideration of Birgeneau Campus Autonomy Proposal

In an email to an organization of former UC chancellors and other officials, former UCLA Chancellor Charles Young calls for serious consideration of the Birgeneau proposals for greater campus autonomy within the UC system by UCOP and the Regents.  In a blog post yesterday, the paper by UC-Berkeley Chancellor Birgeneau et al calling for such autonomy was reproduced along with a (negative) response to the paper by President Yudof. Among other changes, the paper proposed campus-level Boards of Trustees.  See:http://uclafacultyassociation.blogspot.com/2012/05/we-know-view-from-berkeley-from-ucla.html The Young email also refers to long-term funding problems from the state he foresees and suggests that greater reliance on…

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More Pay Less/Say More from the Legislature

Say less or pay more A reporter from the Daily Bruin called my attention to the proposed state constitutional amendment that would cap the proportion of out-of-state admissions to UC.  The proposed amendment caps such admissions at 10% of total, on a campus-by-campus basis.  It would require a 2/3 vote to get to the ballot and that is very unlikely to happen and even less likely to happen in time for November 2012.  There is no quid pro quo in this amendment, i.e., so much money in exchange for the cap. The issue of out-of-state admissions has been raised in…

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LAO Report on the May Revise: UC Barely Exists

The Legislative Analyst has issued its evaluation of the governor’s May Revise budget proposal. There is little of direct UC interest in the text. On the other hand, one would be hard put to find anything that would encourage the legislataure to “buy out” a tuition increase as the Regents wanted at their recent meeting.  There is nothing about UC pension obligations.  There might be a bit of relief for Cal Grant students at UC but even if so, the relief would come in future years. The LAO has suggestions for reframing parts of the budget which might free up…

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Listen to (Partial) Audio of Afternoon Regents Session: 5-16-12

The Regents met in Sacramento on May 16, 2012.  Sacramento was chosen so they could lobby legislators after the meeting.  The morning session was interrupted by a demonstration.  At that time, the Regents went to another location and moved to the closed sessions on the agenda below, presumably while the room was cleared.  The intent was to resume the open part of the meeting after the room was cleared.  The morning session up to the demonstration has been separated posted (the prior post today). Because items were taken out of order as a result of the demonstration, it was unclear…