The last fee increase, in July, raised the amount from $20 to $26. Wyse said he doesn’t think the college would receive more money if it raised fees because the state would probably reduce funding in other areas. The school plans to collect just under $2 million in enrollment fees this year, Wyse said. The fees are a small part of the school’s overall $41.5 million budget, he said. While the fees are safe now, Wyse said the Legislature and governor could change their minds and decide to increase fees.

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by Damon Arthur, The Redding Record Searchlight.

Posted: February 11th, 2010, by: admin. Categories: . Awaiting Comments.

The answer at Sierra College still isn’t known, but it looks like students in the construction, automotive and agriculture programs will probably lose their courses. At the board meeting that drew 500 people last week, trustees voted to send preliminary layoff notices to all instructors in those programs. They asked college administrators to come back with alternative cuts to close the school’s $11.2 million deficit so they might be able to save the vocational classes. But no matter what they cut in the end, board members acknowledged the school won’t be able to serve everyone it always has.

Read full article [here].
by Laurel Rosenhall, The Sacramento Bee.

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

Among the ideas under discussion: Should UC increase its use of online classes? Could bachelor’s degrees be earned in three years? Should campuses eliminate small departments that are duplicated elsewhere? Enroll more out-of-state students to raise revenue? Boost research ties with private industry? But critics say the commission, which comprises mainly regents and top UC administrators, is unlikely to recommend significant changes. And some wonder whether the process is more theatrical than real, aimed at placating legislators and the public, who are angry about student fees and high salaries for UC executives.

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by Larry Gordon, The Los Angeles Times.

Posted: February 8th, 2010, by: admin. Categories: . Awaiting Comments.

Assembly Bill 656 initially would have taxed companies 12.5 percent for oil and gas extracted from the state. The money would have been divided among the three public systems: community colleges, California State University and the University of California. But the bill’s other requirements

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by Matt Krupnick, The San Jose Mercury News.

Posted: February 8th, 2010, by: admin. Categories: . Awaiting Comments.

"Should higher education be treated as a public good," asks Stanton Glantz, a University of California, San Francisco, professor of medicine, in a position paper posted on a faculty association Web site last August, "or should it be viewed as a private good to be paid for by its customers (students and their families) and voluntary private donors?" In Sacramento, it’s not so much an ideological issue as a financial one. The budget share of every other education system that the state (i.e., taxpayers) helps pay for, from kindergarten to community colleges, is in large part assured by Proposition 98. The 1998 voter-approved measure guarantees K-14 schools a set slice of the state’s fiscal pie. Similarly, the federal government mandates minimum state spending levels on many health and welfare programs. But the 10-campus University of California and the 23-campus California State University system have no such protection.

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by Steve Wiegand, The Sacramento Bee.

Posted: February 7th, 2010, by: admin. Categories: . Awaiting Comments.

UC Davis library spending per student has been slashed by a massive 30% since 2001 – including huge cuts in 2003 and 2004, before the state budget crisis hit. The number of full-time librarians has also been cut, from 280 in 1992 to 203 in 2007. These cuts have had a huge impact on the library’s quality: the ranking of the UC Davis library dropped from 38th in the country in 2001 to 72nd in 2008, and further cuts over the past year will lead to a further decline. Students and staff argue that many of the budget issues at the library pre-date the current budget crisis, and are symptomatic of the overall mismanagement of vital university resources. "Two weeks ago, the UC Regents approved a $321 million renovation of UC Berkeley’s football stadium," said Laura Mitchell, a UC Davis senior. "This comes just a few months after the UC Regents hiked student fees by 15% in order to raise $330 million. UC doesn’t have a budget problem; it has a spending problem."

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by Staff, News Blaze.

Posted: February 6th, 2010, by: admin. Categories: . Awaiting Comments.

Confronted with growing public opposition, Gov. Schwarzenegger has done what every smart politician does: He has pretended to change by decrying the fact that California now spends more on prisons than higher education and called for a constitutional amendment to reverse this situation and commit at least 10 percent of the state budget to higher education (the UC and CSU systems) and limit prison funding to 7 percent. This is just the kind of "ballot box budgeting" that the governor used to condemn. Moreover, since the governor makes the budget, Schwarzenegger could just have proposed these allocations in the budget he produced a few days later. He didn’t. The fine print is even more cynical: The provisions would not take effect until 2014, long after he left office. The amendment could be suspended by the governor by declaring a "fiscal emergency." The amendment could be waived by a 2/3 vote of the Legislature, the same vote it takes to pass the budget. And there is more: The amendment is tied to privatizing prisons…

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by Stanton Glantz, The Daily Californian.

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

The leader of the country’s largest university thinks it’s time to re-examine how professors are awarded tenure, a type of job-for-life protection virtually unknown outside academia. Ohio State University President Gordon Gee says the traditional formula that rewards publishing in scholarly journals over excellence in teaching and other contributions is outdated and too often favors the quantity of a professor’s output over quality.

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by Andrew Welsh-Huggins, The Los Angeles Times.

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

Saving higher education in California will take a bold vision in Sacramento of increased funding for education over the long term. A consistent and predictable scaling up of higher education opportunities for California’s high school graduates is the best path to economic recovery. The governor has rightly noted that education is the state’s best investment in the future.

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by Jon Whitmore2, The San Jose Mercury News.

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

Sierra College trustees voted late Tuesday night to lay off instructors in the agricultural, construction and automotive departments, but said they hadn’t made a final decision to end those programs and would look to make other budget cuts in order to save them… Trustees decided not to vote on shutting down six athletic programs slated for closures after coaches and athletes said they would raise private money to keep their teams alive. Nearly 500 people filled the Sierra College theater, offering hours of testimony on how much they value the sports and vocational education provided by the school.

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by Laurel Rosenhall, The Sacramento Bee.

Posted: February 3rd, 2010, by: admin. Categories: . Awaiting Comments.