During the Day of Action on the Berkeley campus, protesters chanted, held signs, and handed out flyers detailing their opinions to passing students. This simple act of explaining to students what exactly they’re working for is vital to spread wider understanding. In a time when UC Regents are threatening to raise UC fees to over $22,000 a year, all UC students should be expressing themselves and making their opinions known. UC Davis students should strive to get more students involved, informed and interested… With a bigger following, UC Davis protesters could have the potential to attract as much press as UC Berkeley protestors, thus giving students more of a chance to garner attention and influence decision making. Protests can help inform students about the issues that are affecting them directly, specifically the current financial state of the UC system.

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by The Editorial Board, The California Aggie.

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

Who’s right? Well, all of these claims are true. The value of college has never been higher. But growth of the college premium has slowed, and the wages of college graduates have fallen in the last 10 years. Here is the case for and against college in 10 charts. Got more charts? Leave them in the comments section.

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by Derek Thompson, The Atlantic.

Posted: September 27th, 2011, by: admin. Categories: . Awaiting Comments.

Among the report’s key findings: There is a new majority on U.S. college campuses, with 75% of students balancing jobs and schools and commuting to class. Only one-quarter of students attend full-time, live on campus and have few work obligations, [and] Part-time students rarely graduate: Only one-quarter of them complete a degree, even when taking twice as long as the traditional four years.

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by Carla Rivera, The Los Angeles Times.

Posted: September 27th, 2011, by: admin. Categories: . Awaiting Comments.

On January 31, Assistant City Editor Terry Robertson emailed, “I’m aiming to get it in the paper by the end of the week.” A few days later, he backtracked, “Well, I just found out that the story needs to be lawyered. That throws a bit of a wrench into the works. Sorry.” By mid-February, Robertson had evidently lost interest. Determined to see it in print, Asimov recruited a veteran Chronicle reporter, John Wildermuth, to edit it. He whipped it into shape at 1,600 words. Now it was time for Asimov to call Blum for comment, since he refuses to talk to me. According to Asimov, Blum was “spitting nails.” He called the allegations of conflicts of interest made by an array of ethics experts “obscene.” He said, “Nobody has ever told me that we had to ask UC for an OK before we invested in something. I wouldn’t be on the Board of Regents if I have to ask for permission to go to the bathroom.” And I was told he threatened the Chronicle with legal action if the story was published.

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by Peter Byrne, The San Francisco Bay Guardian.

Posted: September 27th, 2011, by: admin. Categories: . Awaiting Comments.

“What we have found is that a lot of the alumni think back to when they went to school and they think, I did it, why can’t they do it?” said Nathan Bostrom, executive vice president for business operations for the University of California. “But the state makes up just 11 percent of our budget now. So it will have to come from other funding sources.” Alumni are also skeptical about how UC will spend the money they give. “The university is being run more and more like a corporation, so there’s not a lot of faith I can put into the administration right now,” said Alejandra Cruz, who graduated from UC Berkeley in 2006 before earning her law degree from UCLA last year. “I’m afraid that my money won’t go into bettering the university as a whole. Instead it will go into the pockets of university administrators or to another construction project.” The shaky economy is another reason for alumni reluctance.

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by Jennifer Gollan, The Bay Citizen.

Posted: September 27th, 2011, by: admin. Categories: . Awaiting Comments.

Last week, UC regents approved a $259,000 raise to $960,000 a year, money paid by hospital fees, not state money or student tuition. The justification given was that another academic hospital was recruiting Rice and offering $1.5 million. Katehi told The Bee’s editorial board today that it was “not an easy decision” to support the salary hike. While no one is irreplaceable, she said, the cost and time of replacing Rice would be far greater than the raise. Just hiring an executive search firm would cost $500,000, Katehi said. Then the search would take a year, and UC Davis would almost certainly end up paying more for Rice’s successor. That’s just the way the market is, she said.

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by Foon Rhee, The Sacramento Bee.

Posted: September 26th, 2011, by: admin. Categories: . Awaiting Comments.

In a time of punishing state budget cuts, one might think colleges would welcome billions of new federal dollars to help more students graduate. Yet the D.C. higher-education lobby gave the effort scant support, in large part because that lobby is dominated by rich and powerful universities that would rather leave dollars on the table than countenance any new federal involvement in higher education. Financially struggling institutions that actually educate significant numbers of low-income students were left in the cold. Fighting banks and corporations is easy politics for a Democratic president. Taking on beloved State U. will be a tougher nut to crack. But that’s what Obama must to do to build political will for needed reforms.

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by Kevin Carey, The Chronicle of Higher Education.

Posted: September 25th, 2011, by: admin. Categories: . Awaiting Comments.

The state is projecting budget shortfalls for the next three years. So any reversal in the UC slide likely will have to come from elsewhere, a matter of setting priorities – yet another reason to get the state prison budget under control. It will require sacrifices all around. Clearly, California is not going back to the ideal of a low-cost, state-provided UC education for every qualified Californian. That’s a massive subsidy for Californians who can afford to pay something. Public universities benefit graduates and the state. California’s prosperity and quality of life are intertwined with excellent public universities. Every Californian has a stake in their future. Every Californian should hold elected officials responsible for ensuring that a high quality education remains within reach of every deserving Californian.

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by The Editors, The Sacramento Bee.

Posted: September 25th, 2011, by: admin. Categories: . Awaiting Comments.

San Francisco businessman David Crane’s brief term as a UC regent seems likely to be over in December because Democrats in the state Senate have not moved to confirm his appointment nine months ago by former Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger… In a statement Thursday, UC Student Assn. President Claudia Magana welcomed the likely end of Crane’s term. “Californian’s are sick and tired of not being adequately represented by UC’s regents. We need leaders who will represent our interests and fight to keep our UC public and affordable, not out of touch millionaires and investment bankers who are beholden more to Wall Street than to everyday Californians.”

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by Larry Gordon and Patrick McGreevey, The Los Angeles Times.

Posted: September 22nd, 2011, by: admin. Categories: . Awaiting Comments.

California State University will not seek a second tuition increase this academic year even if it suffers a further $100-million cut in state funding, the system’s chief executive said Wednesday. Chancellor Charles B. Reed, addressing trustees who were meeting in Long Beach, also rejected adopting a multi-year budget that would incorporate annual tuition increases. Some higher education leaders argue that such a move, though controversial, would provide stability and help campus leaders, students and parents better manage education costs.

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by Carla Rivera, The Los Angeles Times.

Posted: September 22nd, 2011, by: admin. Categories: . Awaiting Comments.