Most Californians just don’t seem to get the connection between their worries about the future and the severe budget cuts those universities have already suffered. Nor do the protestors understand that their problems originate not with university presidents and trustees, but in Sacramento and, often, with those same voters. Meanwhile, two of our leading would-be governors, Republicans Steve Poizner and Meg Whitman, are competing over who can whack still more out of the state’s austere budget and the taxes to pay for it. The leading (and so far the only) Democrat, Jerry Brown, who hasn’t yet officially declared, isn’t giving any specifics. But as governor from 1975 to 1983, Brown showed more disdain for the University of California than his Republican predecessor Ronald Reagan did, and treated it more badly in his budgets.
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by Peter Schrag, The California Progress Report.
Posted: November 18th, 2009, by: admin. Categories: . Awaiting Comments.
Recalibrating the puzzle pieces of support for public universities to include more financing from the federal government as state contributions wane might offer the best solutions for public universities’ economic woes, a panel of presidents concluded here Sunday.
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by Jennifer Epstein, Inside Higher Ed.
Posted: November 16th, 2009, by: admin. Categories: . Awaiting Comments.
As California’s universities cut back slots for incoming freshman, they are still touting one route to a bachelor’s degree that remains wide open: Start off at a community college and then transfer to UC or CSU. But a new analysis shows that fewer than half the students who undertake that path ever reach their goal, waylaid by financial, personal and procedural potholes. Only 40 percent of California’s degree-seeking students are ready to transfer to universities after community college, according to the state’s latest annual accountability report for community colleges.
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by Lisa M. Krieger, The San Jose Mercury News.
Posted: November 15th, 2009, by: admin. Categories: . Awaiting Comments.
The University of California system will ask the state for $913 million more in next year’s budget, the 10-campus system announced Sunday. UC President Mark Yudof said in a written statement he would ask the university’s Board of Regents this week to approve the request, which follows last week’s announcement that the California State University system would seek nearly $900 million more in the 2010-11 state budget. Both systems have been hit hard by budget cuts the past two years. Without the additional funding, the UC budget deficit could grow to at least $1.2 billion next year, the university said.
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by Matt Krupnick, The Contra Costa Times.
Posted: November 15th, 2009, by: admin. Categories: . Awaiting Comments.
The University of California is expected to raise fees next week for 24 graduate programs in violation of its own policy against boosting prices higher than competing public institutions. When it meets in Los Angeles next week, UC’s governing Board of Regents is likely to raise fees for 44 graduate programs, including the 24 whose in-state fees would exceed the average price of selected degree programs at other public universities. UC officials are aware of the violation. Instead of maintaining current fee levels, however, they will reconsider their policy – but not until next year.
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by Nanette Asimov, The San Francisco Chronicle.
Posted: November 14th, 2009, by: admin. Categories: . Awaiting Comments.
Legislators should take a hard look in the mirror before they point fingers over "ballot box budgeting," according to an upcoming report by the Center for Governmental Studies. The study, expected to be finalized in the next week or two, will show that 75 percent of the ballot measures that affect how lawmakers can budget were actually put before voters by legislators, according to CGS director Bob Stern. So don’t just blame the voters, ok? "Overall, most ballot box budgeting comes from legislature, not initiatives," Stern said. "That was somewhat of a surprise to us…"
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by Marisa Lagos, The San Francisco Chronicle.
Posted: November 13th, 2009, by: admin. Categories: . Awaiting Comments.
The University of California (UC) Regents will vote Nov. 18 on whether or not to increase undergraduate educational fees by a total of 32 percent, or approximately $2,500, starting next school year. By raising fees, regents and the University Office of the President (UCOP) plan to make up for a loss of state funds. For UC Santa Cruz students, this partly means paying more to support other UC institutions. In a student media press conference held on Nov. 2, UCSC Chancellor George Blumenthal told student representatives that "the last … six fee increases have generally not gone back to the campus where they’ve been collected."
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by Jennifer Cain and Jacob Margolis, City on a Hill Press.
Posted: November 12th, 2009, by: admin. Categories: . Awaiting Comments.
Joan Zuniga of Oakland had high hopes when she sent her daughter to San Francisco State University four years ago. But deep cuts from the state, overcrowded conditions and rising fees have made her concerned about the quality of her daughter’s education – and deeply critical of the way Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger and state lawmakers are handling one of California’s most treasured assets. "They’re not doing a good job," Zuniga said. "Education always seems to be the first thing on the chopping block. It’s spiraled out of control." Her views are in lockstep with those of most Californians, whose trust in the state’s stewardship of higher education has never been lower, according to the latest statewide survey of attitudes on higher education, conducted by the Public Policy Institute of California.
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by Nanette Asimov, The San Francisco Chronicle.
Posted: November 12th, 2009, by: admin. Categories: . Awaiting Comments.
A special commission of the U.S. Department of Education arrived at many of the same conclusions in a 2006 report. America’s colleges and universities, in some respects the best in the world, are failing to keep up with the nation’s growing needs. Higher education is "increasingly risk-averse, at times self-satisfied, and unduly expensive," the panel summarized. "It is an enterprise that has yet to address the fundamental issues of how academic programs and institutions must be transformed to serve the changing educational needs of a knowledge economy." … Faced with a $1 billion budget gap, Yudof pleaded with faculty and staff to take unpaid furloughs — they agreed — and pushed through a 32% tuition hike over the next two years, calling these sacrifices an investment in the future.
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by David Von Drehle, Time Magazine.
Posted: November 11th, 2009, by: admin. Categories: . Awaiting Comments.
With help from Washington, the for-profit college industry is loading up millions of low-income students with debt they’ll never pay off… The day she came in to fill out her paperwork, she says, the recruiters rushed her through the process and discouraged her from taking the forms home to look over. They told her that she would be taking out private loans in addition to federal loans that are traditionally used to pay educational expenses, but did not explain what the terms of those loans would be. “They just kept telling me that ‘we’re with you,’ and that they would try to get me the maximum amount of federal loans allowed,” she says. Only later did she learn that those private loans—which made up 42 percent of her “financial aid” package—carried double-digit interest rates and other onerous terms. To make matters worse, the program did not come close to delivering on the promises that had been made. The instructors had little recent medical experience. Instead of really teaching, she says, they usually just read textbooks aloud in class and sometimes offered students the answers on tests ahead of time. On the rare occasions when Leveque and her class were given time in the lab, she found that the equipment was broken down and shoddy—except for the expensive new mannequin, which no one knew how to use. Instead of the promised rotations at UCLA Medical Center, her clinical training consisted of helping pass out pills at a nursing home.
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by Stephen Burd, Washington Monthly.
Posted: November 1st, 2009, by: admin. Categories: . Awaiting Comments.
