Education would be among the hardest-hit sectors if automatic cuts built into the state’s budget are triggered. And that hit was on the minds of local education leaders Tuesday, a day after state Controller John Chiang reported that state tax revenue in September was $300 million less than expected. A projected $1 billion tax deficit would prompt a $100 million budget cut to Cal State University and University of California systems… The automatic cuts to education are among $2.46 billion in so-called “trigger” cuts included in the budget that was signed in June by Gov. Jerry Brown. If tax receipts are more than $1 billion below projections, the budget calls for automatic cuts of about $600 million, including the cuts to the University of California and California State University systems. If revenues are projected to fall short by more than $2 billion, an additional $1.86 billion will be cut, with the bulk of the savings – $1.54 billion – coming from shortening the K-12 school year by a week.

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by Will Bigham, Redlands Daily Facts.

Posted: October 11th, 2011, by: admin. Categories: . Awaiting Comments.

[H]alf of the university’s undergraduates in 1999 were middle class, as indicated by the report. By 2009, that figure was 41%… There are few good solutions available to university leaders during such tight financial times. Although UC President Mark Yudof presented the tuition increases to the regents as a plan, it’s actually more of a wake-up call to the realities faced by the university if more resources aren’t forthcoming from the state… Stiff increases in tuition, if they prove necessary, should be accompanied by a more graduated financial aid formula that spreads available money among more students.

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by The Editors, The Los Angeles Times.

Posted: October 9th, 2011, by: admin. Categories: . Awaiting Comments.

At the University of California at Berkeley, a small group of students billing itself as a flash mob demonstrated outside Dwinelle Hall to call attention to proposals that they said could increase tuition by as much as 81 percent over the next four years, The Daily Californian reported. “An 81-percent increase equals a lifetime of debt,” Desiree Angelo, a junior and one of the protest’s organizers, said.

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by Charles Huckabee, The Chronicle of Higher Education.

Posted: October 5th, 2011, by: admin. Categories: . Awaiting Comments.

UC Berkeley has pumped up to $14 million per year from its general budget into the athletics department, leading to criticism of the administration as budget cuts have affected other parts of the campus. The UC Berkeley Academic Senate — the faculty’s governing body — in 2009 approved a resolution calling for the school’s athletic department to become self-supporting. Society’s attention to athletics, Nader said, has moved people down what he called the “sensuality ladder,” a theoretical scale of people’s interactions with the world. Nader compared athletics to fast food, which “turns the tongue against the brain.” “Your education is supposed to push you up the sensuality ladder,” he said. Society’s path down the ladder is reflected in the fact that universities pay football coaches more than professors and that UC Berkeley alumni were more concerned about the elimination of the baseball team than the university’s role designing nuclear weapons, he said.

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by Matt Krupnick, The San Jose Mercury News.

Posted: October 5th, 2011, by: admin. Categories: . Awaiting Comments.

“When we develop a satellite campus and when we develop a freestanding medical school is entirely dependent upon philanthropy and state funding,” said Frederick Meyers, executive associate dean of the UC-Davis School of Medicine and executive director of medical school planning at UC-Merced. “Our vision is not of a traditional medical school.” He explained that there will be an anchor hospital of some kind, but students also will train in other locations in the Central Valley. UC-Riverside began planning its medical school nearly a decade ago. This year, the university encountered a stumbling block when the state budget cut funding for its medical school. As a result, the university was refused accreditation by the Liaison Committee on Medical Education, which cited a lack of a “sufficient financial resources” as the primary reason for denying the application. The university has the buildings, the faculty and the senior leadership to run the school; it just lacks the funding, said G. Richard Olds, dean of UC-Riverside’s School of Medicine.

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by Lauren McSherry, California Healthline.

Posted: October 3rd, 2011, by: admin. Categories: . Awaiting Comments.

Campuses are so dominated by anger these days, so overwhelmed by angst, that it can be difficult to pick out the important messages amid the noise. Tuition hikes, budget cuts, administrators’ salaries, affirmative action — so many issues, so many protests… College protests have long been common occurrences, especially on the Berkeley campus, but longtime observers have noted a change in the demonstrations’ tone and frequency recently. With the frustration of being unable to change the tide of rapidly rising tuition and declining state funds has come anger and dismay.

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by Matt Krupnick, The San Jose Mercury News.

Posted: October 2nd, 2011, by: admin. Categories: . Awaiting Comments.

Data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics reveals that the current unemployment rate stands at 9.1 percent (14 million Americans). But one fact stands out in the data: Individuals with a bachelor’s degree or higher are significantly less likely to be unemployed than those with less education. The unemployment rate for those with a bachelor’s degree or higher is 4.3 percent compared to those with a high school diploma (9.6 percent) or less (14.3 percent). In other words, for every level of education attained, the chances of being unemployed decreases, while at the same time, personal income increases. By directly connecting our job growth efforts to investments in strengthening our educational system, we will reap benefits that will lead to a more skilled workforce and stronger economy.

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by Michelle Asha Cooper, The Huffington Post.

Posted: September 28th, 2011, by: admin. Categories: . Awaiting Comments.

President Obama urged high school students today to stay in school and pursue higher education, saying their future — and the nation’s — depends on it. “The fact of the matter is that more than 60% of jobs in the next decade will require more than a high school diploma,” Obama said during his third annual back-to-school speech. “That’s the world you’re walking into.” Obama told students at a Washington high school that the USA used to have “the world’s highest proportion of young people with a college degree,” but “now we’re ranked 16th.”

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by David Jackson, USA Today.

Posted: September 28th, 2011, by: admin. Categories: . Awaiting Comments.

Under certain conditions it undoubtedly is true — for example, for the working student who cannot travel to class and for whom online education opens a whole new world of previously inaccessible options. For these students, universities can and should work to create appropriate frameworks and programs to use online instruction to broaden their reach. But policymakers, university teachers and administrators should acknowledge that scientific studies and budget pressures notwithstanding, something is lost when the classroom experience becomes virtual. As we strive to educate our university students in an increasingly competitive global economic climate, among the many costly and complex measures that are on the table for improving their educational experience, here’s one that is refreshingly simple: Show up. Instructors owe it to their students to be there in the classroom, and students owe it to themselves — and to the rest of us — to do their best to be there as well.

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by John Villasenor, The Los Angeles Times.

Posted: September 28th, 2011, by: admin. Categories: . Awaiting Comments.

The California State University faculty union on Wednesday called for a one-day strike at two CSU campuses to protest the administration’s decision to withhold negotiated pay raises. The California Faculty Association said it plans to hold “concerted actions” at the East Bay and Dominguez Hills campuses on Nov. 17. Those actions could include a strike if union members authorize it. The faculty union, which represents professors, lecturers, coaches, counselors and librarians, also plans to conduct informational picketing at all 23 Cal State campuses on Nov. 8 or 9, union leaders said. The faculty association decided to call for the job actions after administrators decided not to pay salary increases negotiated for the 2008-2009 and 2009-2010 academic years.

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by Terence Chea, The Sacramento Bee.

Posted: September 28th, 2011, by: admin. Categories: . Awaiting Comments.