Overhead cost (the cost of administering colleges and universities) should benefit from economies of scale and from the significant technological progress that occurred over the last three decades; as
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by Robert Martin, Inside Higher Ed.
Ironically, it’s the poor and middle class who are being priced out of the very thing that enables their children to seek a better life. At the same time the United States is being outclassed by China, India, and others who are producing increasing numbers of highly educated graduates. Soon they will be eating our lunch, relegating us to second class status on the world stage. Tough problems demand "outside the box," often radical solutions. That’s why we should give serious consideration to providing free college and trade school education to all. Too costly you say? It’s estimated that the cost of tuition at public universities across the nation amounted to between $70 to $100 billion dollars. Sounds expensive until you realize providing free higher education for American citizens would cost slightly more than the Bush tax cuts for the top 2 percent of the country.
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by Dr. C. Alonzo Peters, AlterNet.
Californians object to increasing taxes in order to pare the state’s massive budget deficit, and instead favor closing the breach through spending cuts. But they oppose cuts — and even prefer more spending — on programs that make up 85% of the state’s general fund obligations… Political figures often campaign on the notion that budgets can be brought swiftly into line by curbing waste, fraud or abuse. Schwarzenegger himself argued that he would find billions in savings that way — only to recant after he was elected and few easy cuts could be found.
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by Cathleen Decker, The Los Angeles Times.
As long as the economy was flush, nobody seemed to notice that the state for decades has been retreating from its commitment to the University of California and the California State University systems. State funding of UC has declined more than 40 percent during the past 20 years… UC employees were furloughed for more than 650,000 days in 2009 and 2010, saving UC $236 million, and 2,700 positions have been eliminated during the past two years. Yet, mindful of the threat to quality, we know that’s not a long-term solution.
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by Russell Gould, The Sacramento Bee.
As the UC Board of Regents met at the UC San Francisco campus Wednesday, violent skirmishes broke out between students protesting an impending eight percent fee increase and police officers, resulting in 13 arrests. During the day, more than a dozen protesters were pepper sprayed by police officers as a crowd of 300 amassed outside the meeting and – in the day’s most dramatic moment – a UCPD officer drew his pistol and pointed it at a crowd of protesters after they swarmed him and he dropped his baton.
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by Javier Panzar and Nina Brown, The Daily Californian.
About 200 University of California students and faculty have gathered at UC San Francisco’s Mission Bay campus this morning to protest proposed student fee hikes and changes to employee retirement plans. The protest is taking place outside a UC Board of Regents meeting, where the board will consider an 8 percent fee increase for students. Regents also will discuss proposed changes to retirement benefits for employees.
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by Staff, The San Jose Mercury News.
CUE-Teamsters told the University of California’s Board of Regents and UC President Mark Yudof today that their plan for benefit reductions unfairly targets lower income employees. The Teamsters hired an independent actuarial firm to review the data made available by the university. Results show that under the university’s plan, CUE-Teamsters will not only continue paying a higher percentage of their incomes towards benefits, but their benefits would be reduced while higher-income employees’ benefits would remain unchanged.
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by CUE-Teamsters, PR Newswire.
UC campus police are already preparing for what’s expected to be a massive day of protests as regents prepare for a vote that could make going to a UC school a lot more expensive… UC regents are also considering changing retirement benefits.
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by Terry McSweeney, The San Jose Mercury News.
As a prelude to Wednesday’s planned protests to be staged during the UC Board of Regents meeting at UC San Francisco, a small protest was held at UC Berkeley throughout Tuesday morning and afternoon, which included efforts to shut down a campus administrative building. About 40 protesters first gathered with banners and signs at the east entrance of California Hall at around 6:40 a.m. Tuesday morning in an attempt to block the building’s entrances and prevent administrative staff from reaching their offices. But officers from both UCPD and the Alameda County Sheriff’s Office had already surrounded the building by 6:30 a.m. and set up a barricade by the building’s west entrance to prevent protesters from blocking that side. Throughout the morning, police were able to escort administrators to and from the building…
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by Jeffrey Butterfield, The Daily Californian.