UC Davis is moving to add 5,000 students, many of them from outside California, in a bid to increase revenue and reduce its dependence on volatile state funding. The plan, unveiled in a speech Wednesday by Chancellor Linda Katehi, is in line with a concerted effort across the University of California system to admit more non-California students to stabilize UC’s finances. Nonresidents pay more than twice as much as Californians in tuition and fees. Katehi’s plan would take that strategy a step further. It would swell UC Davis’ student population by 15 percent, all in the undergraduate ranks. The school would grow to a total of 37,000 students, making Davis the second-largest campus behind UCLA. As many as half the additional students could come from outside the state, enabling the expansion to pay for itself, she said in an interview.

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by Dale Kasler and Laurel Rosenhall, The Sacramento Bee.

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

Calling it a response to the dramatic drop in state funding, UC Davis’ chancellor today announced a plan to increase the campus’ undergraduate population by one fifth, one of the biggest leaps in years. The vision outlined by Chancellor Linda Katehi would swell the school’s undergraduate population to around 29,000 within five years. The total student population would rise to 37,000, surpassing Berkeley and making Davis the second most populous University of California campus, behind UCLA… The school said it’s in the early stages of studying whether it can add the students and faculty. Katehi… did not specify what percentage of the new students would come from out of state, a population that pays higher tuition.

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by Dale Kasler, The Sacramento Bee.

Posted: September 21st, 2011, by: admin. Categories: . Awaiting Comments.

“In August my post-graduation grace period was up and all of the payments on my student loans amount to $500/month. Adding that expense to my monthly bills puts me at $2,100 per month. If I don’t make my payments they will revoke my real estate license, which I need in order to do my job.” …student debt has grown by 511 percent since 1999. At that time, only $90 billion in student loans were outstanding—by the second quarter of 2011, that balance was up to $550 billion, according to the New York Fed. And the Department of Education estimates that outstanding loans total closer to $805 billion—and that number will pass $1 trillion soon.

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by Sarah Jaffe, AlterNet.

Posted: September 21st, 2011, by: admin. Categories: . Awaiting Comments.

Six of the March 2 UC Berkeley Wheeler Hall sit-in protesters were found not guilty of disturbing the peace in a ruling issued Tuesday in Oakland. The decision resulted from a bench trial presided over by Judge Gordon Baranco at the Wiley W. Manuel Courthouse in Oakland. The protesters — who were arrested after they refused to leave Wheeler Hall in a demonstration against budget cuts — were originally charged for trespassing but had their charges amended to disturbing the peace during the course of the trial.

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by Sarah Burns, The Daily Californian.

Posted: September 20th, 2011, by: admin. Categories: . Awaiting Comments.

At U. of California at San Diego, an itch for Division I collides with a financing falloff… The Tritons don’t even have an invitation from a Division I conference, an NCAA requirement for moving up. But that technicality hasn’t stopped a group of undergraduates, tired of a subdued campus life and hungry for a sports-driven sense of community, from moving ahead in their quest to acquire Division I cachet… But the road to Division I sometimes leads to mixed results. The University of California at Davis, for instance, began its move eight years ago, bolstered by student fees. But in 2010, just three years after completing its transition to Division I, statewide budget cuts forced the Aggies to eliminate four sports.

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by Libby Sander, The Chronicle of Higher Education.

Posted: September 18th, 2011, by: admin. Categories: . Awaiting Comments.

While UC underwrites much of the costs of an education for the poor, and the wealthy can always find the money, the middle class is being priced out of a public university education in California. Consider that we live in an era of double-digit unemployment, shrinking home values, stagnant wages and college investment funds that aren’t appreciating — and the dilemma is clearcut. Either students give up the idea of a UC education, or go deeply into debt for decades — or send their families’ finances spiraling… Somehow, higher ed is going to have to get a guaranteed source of funding. One way would be to ask voters to mandate guaranteed money go to UC, CSU and community colleges.

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by The Editors, The Santa Cruz Sentinel.

Posted: September 18th, 2011, by: admin. Categories: . Awaiting Comments.

[F]aculty members, staff, and students called for cuts that resembled recommendations found in the consultants’ reports. These groups are asking budget administrators to “protect the academic core” by slicing from what they view as unnecessarily large administration instead of instruction, research, and student and academic services. And many university administrators claim they are doing just that. What the consultant reports show, and what other universities learned through their own efforts, is that major budget savings could be obtained through cuts in administrative services. Many universities are now trying to execute these plans, merging and sharing services across divisions, eliminating supervisory positions, and using new software to lower the cost of purchasing. But data such as a new report released this week from the Delta Project on Postsecondary Education Costs, Productivity, and Accountability, show that administrative cutting can only go so far…

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by Kevin Kiley, Inside Higher Ed.

Posted: September 16th, 2011, by: admin. Categories: . Awaiting Comments.

No one at the meeting raised the possibility that UC might not need to increase spending as much as it has proposed. That view, however, could be found in the Capitol, where budget analysts said they were frustrated by the regents’ conversation. “UC is in effect saying that it plans to spend hundreds of millions of dollars more each year … at a time that inflation is at historic lows, when demographic growth in the college-age population is near zero and when most public agencies are spending less money, rather than more money,” Steve Boilard, director for higher education at the Legislative Analyst’s Office, said in an email. “I’m disappointed there wasn’t a more robust conversation about these increases and what these spending increases entail,” he said. H.D. Palmer, spokesman for the state’s Department of Finance, said the agency is in talks with UC about its request for four years of funding commitments but that no decisions have been made. He noted that the state is projecting budget shortfalls ranging from $1.6 billion to $3.1 billion for the next three years. UC wants more money to close a budget gap projected at $2.5 billion over the next four years. Its current gap of $1 billion was caused in part by a state cut of $650 million. Another $100 million cut looms this winter if state revenue does not meet expectations.

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by Laurel Rosenhall, The Sacramento Bee.

Posted: September 16th, 2011, by: admin. Categories: . Awaiting Comments.

Newsom is convening meetings of UC, California State University system and community college officials, along with labor and business leaders, to try to come up with a plan for better higher education funding. He said that might include an oil and gas production tax dedicated to colleges and universities. Newsom said the higher tuition projections could alarm parents and students. “This is not the way to get the voters to say, ‘I love supporting the [UC] system,’ ” he said. Regents Richard Blum and Eddie Island urged university leaders to launch a fundraising campaign to persuade California businesses to donate billions for student financial aid. “There is money in California. There is an opportunity to save this university,” said Island, who said higher tuition would especially harm UC’s growing population of minority and low-income students. In other action Thursday, the regents approved hefty incentive awards and pay raises for eight UC financial and medical center executives. Marie Berggren, the university’s chief investment officer, was given the largest bonus, $744,950, bringing her total annual cash compensation to $1.2 million.

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by Larry Gordon, The Los Angeles Time.

Posted: September 16th, 2011, by: admin. Categories: . Awaiting Comments.

The University of California regents dodged a controversy Thursday by ignoring a proposal from UC President Mark Yudof that would have mandated annual tuition increases of 8 to 16 percent for the next four years. Instead, the regents turned their meeting at UCSF’s Mission Bay campus into a therapy session of sorts, gnashing their teeth about the steep drop in state funding – nearly $1 billion in the last two years – and debating whether they could get California corporations to kick in millions of dollars to UC. The regents also approved raises and incentive plans for 18 executives… Senior Vice President John Stobo, in charge of UC’s health system, received a $130,500 award for, among other things, reducing blood infections. When Stobo’s raise was announced and he was praised for his achievements, a health care worker – a member of a union that has been without a contract for months – jumped up from the audience and yelled, “It’s sad that you give yourself all these raises. The decrease in infections is because of our work, but you guys get credit for it. Shame on you!” Guards led her away.

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by Nanette Asimov, The San Francisco Chonicle.

Posted: September 16th, 2011, by: admin. Categories: . Awaiting Comments.