California does not have a surplus of college students, and it will need hundreds of thousands more in coming years to sustain its economy, several researchers said. Large numbers of students leaving the state represent a threat, albeit fledgling, to California’s future, particularly if many don’t return. “These numbers are in the wrong direction for the state,” said Hans Johnson, a researcher with the Public Policy Institute of California. Johnson estimates California will have 1 million fewer college graduates by 2025 than its industries will require.

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by Phillip Reese, The Sacramento Bee.

Posted: May 6th, 2012, by: admin. Categories: . Awaiting Comments.

At least 17 students at six CSU campuses have gone on a hunger strike. They’re promising to fast until administrators agree to freeze tuition for five years and instead roll back the pay raises for CSU chancellors and presidents. “We’ve gone through many options to make our voices heard by the board of trustees,” Antoine Wilson, a CSU Dominguez Hills business administration student, told the Vallejo Times-Herald. “We’ve held protests, rallies and we’ve gone to board of trustee meetings and they still have ignored us.” In addition, the California Faculty Association, which represents 24,000 CSU employees, announced this week that they voted to authorize a strike.

Posted: May 3rd, 2012, by: admin. Categories: . Awaiting Comments.

In light of this ongoing discussion, it is difficult to blame the bank. Still, Barry Shiller stands by the university’s decision not to use the police to clear the way. “Yes, we do believe it was appropriate,” he said. “Demonstrators were afforded weeks to modify their behavior. When they elected to continue the blockade, they were warned — verbally or in writing, on 11 occasions between February 3 and 27 — that they were subject to possible criminal and campus sanctions.” He does however, concede that the university should have, at the very least, moved more quickly to take the steps that were taken. “Perhaps [we should have] accelerated the steps outlined [previously], moving somewhat more quickly to the above steps,” he conceded.

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by David M. Greenwald, The Davis Vanguard.

Posted: May 1st, 2012, by: admin. Categories: . Awaiting Comments.

[T]he UC regents should be very wary of a report out of UC Berkeley proposing new levels of autonomy for each of the system’s 10 schools. That autonomy, according to the proposal coauthored by Berkeley Chancellor Robert J. Birgeneau, would include the ability to set tuition, within certain limits, and to determine how many students to accept from out of state… Berkeley and UCLA become campuses of rich students and poor scholarship students, while middle-class kids would be relegated to the less competitive schools… Meanwhile, other campuses with less star power would be left to fend for themselves, and the inequities among campuses would probably grow.

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by The Editors, The Los Angeles Times.

Posted: April 30th, 2012, by: admin. Categories: . Awaiting Comments.

Democratic lawmakers are offering a way to help California’s middle class families cope with soaring college tuition: close a corporate tax loophole and use the money for scholarships. But the “Middle-Class Scholarship Act,” which receives its first committee hearing this week, already is facing several obstacles. Five out-of-state corporations are lobbying against it, and Republican lawmakers are promising to block Democrats from reaching the two-thirds majority vote they need in the Legislature.

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by Hannah Dreier, NBC Bay Area.

Posted: April 29th, 2012, by: admin. Categories: . Awaiting Comments.

Over a dozen students with the Students for Quality Education announced Friday that the protest will start Wednesday and will be held at the Dominguez Hills, Fullerton, Long Beach, Northridge, Sacramento and San Bernardino campuses. The students say they will fast until university leaders freeze tuition, roll back salaries and meet other demands. “We’ve talked to state legislators, written petitions, mobilized people on campus,” Cal State Long Beach student Donnie Bessom said during a telephone news conference. “The next step for us is in the tradition of nonviolent civil disobedience.”

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by Staff, KTLA News.

Posted: April 29th, 2012, by: admin. Categories: . Awaiting Comments.

No matter how the money is spent, it makes sense to eliminate the break for multi-state corporations that allows them to pick which of two formulas they want to use as the basis for their taxes each year. By switching to a system that would tax these companies based only on their sales in this state, the bill would bring California in line with other states, give companies more of an incentive to locate and hire here or at least not move away, and raise about $1 billion a year. This page has previously encouraged such a switch, as has the state legislative analyst. Ideally, the revenue would go into the cash-strapped general fund. And even if it didn’t, but was targeted for higher education, it’s unclear that tuition breaks constitute the best use.

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by The Editors, The Los Angeles Times.

Posted: April 27th, 2012, by: admin. Categories: . Awaiting Comments.

This study concludes that the benefits of higher education extend well beyond the direct payoff for students and include substantial gains to the state, and it is indeed worth the investment. California´s higher education investments pay off for all of California, not only for the individuals who receive a college education through increased lifetime earnings, but for the state in increased tax revenue and reduced costs for social welfare programs and incarceration… For every dollar California invests to get more students in and through college, it will receive a net return on investment of four dollars and fifty cents. That’s a net return of 450 percent.

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by Dr. Jon Stiles, Dr. Michael Hout and Dr. Henry Brady, The Campaign for College Opportunity.

Posted: April 25th, 2012, by: admin. Categories: . Awaiting Comments.

The 10 campuses of the UC system should be given more power to govern themselves and be allowed to set their own tuition, decide how many out-of-state students to enroll, approve construction projects and control some investments under a proposal released Monday by UC Berkeley leaders… Robert Anderson, a UC Berkeley professor who is chairman of the systemwide faculty Senate, expressed strong opposition and predicted chances for regents’ approval as “slim to none.” He said the proposal would “split apart the University of California system in a way which is not in the interests of any of the campuses and not in the interests of the system itself.” He said it would encourage campuses to fight for money in separate appeals to state government.

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by Larry Gordon, The Los Angeles Times.

Posted: April 23rd, 2012, by: admin. Categories: . Awaiting Comments.

In a December 16, 2011, open letter to President Obama, Mary Sue Coleman, President of the University of Michigan, wrote: “American higher education — particularly public higher education — is one of the monumental achievements of our country… responsible for America’s knowledge security — an intellectual wellbeing that advances health and medicine, business, social science, the arts, public policy and national defense.” Why on earth would an enlightened, forward-looking society put such a remarkable system of higher education at risk? But that’s exactly what we’re doing right now.

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by Gene D. Block, The Huffington Post.

Posted: April 17th, 2012, by: admin. Categories: . Awaiting Comments.