The University of California should increase the number of undergraduates from out of state but limit their proportion to no more than 10% of the overall undergraduate student body, a commission studying future reforms for UC recommended Tuesday. About 8% of UC’s current incoming freshman class across all its campuses are from other states and nations, a record high share aimed at garnering the additional tuition those students pay… The commission dropped a more controversial idea to establish different student fees for various UC campuses.

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by Larry Gordon, The Los Angeles Times.

Posted: September 1st, 2010, by: admin. Categories: . Awaiting Comments.

The plan was intended in part to offer students at the state’s 112 community colleges a way to take courses that might have been canceled or overcrowded because of state budget cuts. But some faculty were concerned about getting entangled with a proprietary school. Even with a discount, Kaplan planned to charge students $646 for a three-credit class, compared with $78 at a community college. Jane Patton, an instructor at Mission College in Santa Clara who is president of the Academic Senate for California Community Colleges, released a statement praising the cancellation. “We have been concerned about potential negative effects on students — particularly the fact that Kaplan courses could not later be carried with them to other universities,” she said.

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by Larry Gordon, The Los Angeles Times.

Posted: August 26th, 2010, by: admin. Categories: . Awaiting Comments.

The money spent on the house came from a private endowment. It was a relatively small sum for a $20 billion, 180,000-employee public university that supports 10 campuses, five medical centers and a national laboratory. But the lavish spending and the numerous hours spent by university officials managing Mr. Yudof’s personal affairs have chafed some members of his team. "He essentially turned the Office of the President into his personal staff," a university official said. Much of the activity took place out of public view. The Office of the President filed at least six reports of "interim actions" related to the house that took place between public meetings of the Board of Regents.

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by Steve Fainaru, The New York Times.

Posted: August 21st, 2010, by: admin. Categories: . Awaiting Comments.

My own calculations, separating those cost components by using data from a faculty time-use study, lead to the conclusion that, as of 2007, undergraduate student fees at UC had reached 100% of the actual cost of providing their education. And fees have since risen by 30 percent… If I am right, then it is up to the state government and taxpayers to assume full responsibility for funding the university’s research mission and to stop pushing the cost of that research – which is a benefit to all – onto the tuition bills of students. This is a direct challenge to the Board of Regents and their hired executives.

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by Charles Schwartz, Minding the Campus.

Posted: August 9th, 2010, by: admin. Categories: . Awaiting Comments.

Despite a budget crunch, Chico State University officials feel "a moral obligation" to admit qualified students from north state community colleges, the university’s president said this week… The sticking point in admissions is a shortage of state funds. Allan Bee, Chico State’s director of admissions, said that now the university doesn’t have the money to "adequately educate" all the students who are applying for the next spring semester. Once a state budget is passed, there will be a better picture of how much money is available and how many students can be accommodated.

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by Larry Mitchell, Oroville Mercury-Register.

Posted: August 5th, 2010, by: admin. Categories: . Awaiting Comments.

I was pretty astonished that amidst the many gestures toward the authority of economics not a single word was said about the supply of professors and how it might be affected by a substantial change in their compensation. The notion that tenure is a costly luxury that professors have imposed on universities, and that administrators need flexibility to "quickly reallocate resources," completely overlooks the kind of resource university faculty members are and the cost of producing them. The AAUP’s academic freedom argument also distracts attention from this important aspect of faculty work and compensation. Professors do not grow on trees, and university administrators — let’s call them bureaucrats — cannot quickly respond to ephemeral needs by shaking one tree instead of another, because the trees are not there to shake.

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by Bruce Heiden, The National Association of Scholars.

Posted: August 4th, 2010, by: admin. Categories: . Awaiting Comments.

The Berkeley Faculty Association — a group of about 300 professors — put out a report in May that did not condemn the pilot but voiced concerns about where Edley wants it to lead. The association was particularly unnerved by the idea of graduate student-instructors being the "frontline of contact" with online students, as Edley put it. For some, that sort of talk evokes a model many for-profit institutions have used to keep payroll expenses low and administrative control high: have full-time faculty put together the syllabus, then hire less-expensive adjuncts to deliver it. Faculty resistance to this sort of University of Phoenix-inspired arrangement was a major factor in last year’s implosion of the University of Illinois Global Campus, a similarly ambitious online effort.

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by Steve Kolowich, USA Today.

Posted: August 4th, 2010, by: admin. Categories: . Awaiting Comments.

The federal government’s decision not only ends California’s hope of raising immediate cash for the state budget through the sale of EdFund, but threatens an annual source of millions of dollars that have gone toward grants for low-income students in recent years. The Legislature was counting on EdFund profits to pay for $100 million in Cal Grants this year. Much of that money is in reserves and does not appear to be at risk, though the state would not be able to rely on EdFund for future revenues.

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by Kevin Yamamura, The Sacramento Bee.

Posted: July 30th, 2010, by: admin. Categories: . Awaiting Comments.

The worrisome state of California’s finances extends beyond business, says Jack Kyser, Chief Economic Advisor at the Southern California Association of Governments. "People are concerned about the long-term impact on California – on education, especially the University of California," and on transportation and other infrastructure spending, he says. There is talk among analysts that there may be no state budget until Schwarzenegger leaves office in January. But one silver lining could be that voters might evaluate the wisdom of California’s high requirement to pass a budget — two-thirds of the legislature.

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by Daniel B. Wood, The Christian Science Monitor.

Posted: July 29th, 2010, by: admin. Categories: . Awaiting Comments.

In another study released this year that tracked graduate student satisfaction at UC Berkeley, findings showed that students who relied most on student loans were the ones most affected by the state’s budget cuts. Among the issues cited, about 30 percent of the survey respondents said they had difficulty finding local housing that was appropriate and affordable. Student respondents also mentioned other noticeable changes attributed to budget cuts: enlarged class size, larger workload for the teaching assistants and less faculty attention for undergraduates.

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by Melanie Graysmith, Examiner.com San Francisco.

Posted: July 28th, 2010, by: admin. Categories: . Awaiting Comments.