The Master Plan for Higher Education promised affordable access to a high quality post secondary education for all Californians who wished to pursue it. It wedded a visionary economic blueprint for the state’s workforce to the moral, intellectual and political purposes of providing our state’s citizens with the means to participate in our democratic institutions. It was meant to be accountable due to its substantial cost. Its goals remain the right ones, but changing political and economic circumstances have undermined its promise today, and threaten, if unaddressed, to renege on its promise for future generations.

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by Dennis Smith, The California Progress Report.

Posted: December 8th, 2009, by: admin. Categories: . Awaiting Comments.

Smith notes that the "Joint Committee to Develop a Master Plan for Education" in 2002 offered numerous recommendations that would keep higher education affordable but only some were actually put into law. He argues that the other recommendations can still be taken to reduce the pain of the budget cuts.

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by Hoa Quach, The San Diego News Network.

Posted: December 8th, 2009, by: admin. Categories: . Awaiting Comments.

It’s an obscure document with a wonky title. But the California Master Plan for Higher Education is widely credited with allowing the state to produce some of the finest universities in the world, fueling innovation that’s made California a global economic power. The heads of California’s college and university systems gathered in the Capitol on Monday to make the case for updating the nearly 50-year-old plan — and to tell legislators that state budget cuts are threatening its vision of excellent and affordable education for all… Lawmakers focused on more tangible issues. Assemblyman Ira Ruskin, D-Redwood City, asked the university leaders if they were doing anything to reduce energy use. Assemblywoman Cathleen Galgiani, D-Livingston, asked if UC could help develop curriculum to educate future high-speed rail workers. Assemblyman V. Manuel Perez, D-Coachella, talked about recent changes at a CSU satellite campuses in Imperial County.

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by Laurel Rosenhall, The Sacramento Bee.

Posted: December 8th, 2009, by: admin. Categories: . Awaiting Comments.

"I believe we can all agree our current system is in crisis, and we can all engage together to rescue it before it’s too late," said Assemblyman Ira Ruskin, D-Redwood City. All three education leaders said the challenge involves stabilizing funding from the state rather than making sweeping changes to the 1960 Master Plan for Higher Education, which serves as a model for access, affordability and academic excellence. "The Master Plan is not broken," said CSU Chancellor Charles Reed. "The future of California is tied to education. More people need an education today than they did when the Master Plan was first envisioned." Scott noted that California’s colleges and universities accounted for 17 percent of state spending in 1965 compared to slightly more than 10 percent today. Each system has asked the governor and lawmakers to increase their budgets next fiscal year to make up for the recent cuts. However, the state is already facing a nearly $21 billion gap in its fiscal 2010-2011 budget.

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by Samantha Young, The Sacramento Bee.

Posted: December 8th, 2009, by: admin. Categories: . Awaiting Comments.

"Research reports suggest our (higher education) system is now at grave risk," said Assemblyman Ira Ruskin, D-Redwood City, co-chairman of the committee that is examining the Master Plan that has guided higher education for nearly 50 years. He and Sen. Gloria Negrete McLeod, D-Chino (San Bernardino County), are holding hearings to evaluate the plan and "get our higher education back on track," Ruskin said. "We can all agree that our current system is in crisis and that we can rescue it before it’s too late." But several speakers told the lawmakers that their fiscal approach to higher education – not necessarily the Master Plan – should change. "You have to affirm the Master Plan’s promise, not compromise it by reorganizing it to what you can now afford," said Brian Murphy, chief consultant to an earlier review of the Master Plan, from 1985 to 1989.

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by Nanette Asimov, The San Francisco Chronicle.

Posted: December 8th, 2009, by: admin. Categories: . Awaiting Comments.

The leaders of California’s three public college and university systems made a rare joint appearance at a legislative hearing to urge that the state restore enough funding to maintain the nearly 50-year-old master plan for higher education. This year’s cuts in education spending are causing so much overcrowding and enrollment limits that the master plan’s goals of a low-cost, accessible college education for all qualified students is in jeopardy, they said.

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by Larry Gordon, The Los Angeles Times.

Posted: December 8th, 2009, by: admin. Categories: . Awaiting Comments.

This… government corruption involves improper reimbursement of expenses incurred by David J. Ernst, former chief of information technology services for the California State University system. Ernst’s reimbursements included trips to Shanghai, Melbourne, London and Amsterdam. The total reimbursement — which involved traveling expenses, expensive dinners for cronies and enormous transportation costs — amounted to more than $150,000 over three years. Ernst’s comments to the media include, "As with many such reports, the issues in this audit are much more complex than they may appear on first reading." Prior to the audit’s release, Ernst took a similar job with the University of California system. After results of the audit were released, employees in the UC rightly called for Ernst to reimburse the CSU and for the UC to fire him.

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by Staff, The Daily 49er.

Posted: December 7th, 2009, by: admin. Categories: . Awaiting Comments.

The state has drifted, without any deliberate choice of policy, toward increased student fees and less public support. So it is good news that the Legislature has named a Joint Committee for the Master Plan on Higher Education to forge solutions. Assemblyman Ira Ruskin, D-Redwood City, who co-chairs the committee with Sen. Gloria Negrete McLeod, D-Chino, underscores the urgency of the situation. Ruskin believes that California’s higher education system is in peril — slipping into mediocrity and excluding large numbers of Californians… In the end, the big question is: Should higher education in California be considered a public good that benefits the public at large, or as a private good to be paid for by "users" (students) and private donors? Answer that and solutions will follow. Without an answer, the current drift and deterioration will continue. California needs a new vision as bold as the 1960 Master Plan to assure that higher education remains a key element in the state’s prosperity and a principal avenue of individual opportunity.

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by The Editors, The Merced Sun Star.

Posted: December 7th, 2009, by: admin. Categories: . Awaiting Comments.

California’s 50-year-old "Master Plan for Higher Education" is not broken — in fact, nations such as China and Singapore are trying to replicate it. But it is in peril because of inadequate funding, college administrators testified Monday morning in Sacramento. Rather than dismantling the state’s three-tiered college system due to current financial stresses, legislators should strengthen it to build a better-educated work force for the future, college leaders said. The public hearing, organized by Assemblyman Ira Ruskin, D-Redwood City, is the first of several meetings sponsored by the Joint Committee for Review of the Master Plan of Higher Education.

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by Lisa M. Krieger and Denis C. Theriault, The San Jose Mercury News.

Posted: December 7th, 2009, by: admin. Categories: . Awaiting Comments.

Some of this was due to the recent economic downturn. But shifting an increasing portion of the cost of higher education from the general fund to individual students has a much longer history. In an earlier day a highly educated citizenry was considered a public good, benefiting all, therefore supported from public funds. That ended in 1967 with Gov. Ronald Reagan’s inaugural address. He announced an across-the-board budget cut of 10 percent for all agencies including the UC. Soon after he announced that the UC budget would be cut by 30 percent and tuition imposed. This would all but destroy the educational mission of the UC. Reagan had to back off on the larger cut to the university’s budget, but from this point on the UC budget became a political football and budgets often suffered.

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by Bob Williams, The Redding Record Searchlight.

Posted: December 7th, 2009, by: admin. Categories: . Awaiting Comments.