"We’ve laid-off 2,000 people," Yudof said. "We’ve had furloughs for the faculty and for the staff. We have hiring freezes on faculty. We are loaning the state money, in fact. … They’re not even giving us our state funding on time." In fact, Yudof said, the University has only half as much money as it did 20 years ago. "In 1990-91, in current dollars — that means inflation adjusted — we had $15,860 to spend on every student on our campus," Yudof said. "That was 20 years ago roughly. And today, under the budget that was just approved by the legislature and the governor in May, we have $7,730. This is our problem."

Read full article [here].
by Maane Khatchatourian, The Daily Nexus.

Posted: October 5th, 2009, by: admin. Categories: . Awaiting Comments.

Its political system is locked in paralysis and the two-term rule of former movie star Arnold Schwarzenegger is seen as a disaster – his approval ratings having sunk to levels that would make George W Bush blush… The percentage of 19-year-olds at college in the state dropped from 43% to 30% between 1996 and 2004, one of the highest falls ever recorded for any developed world economy. California’s schools are ranked 47th out of 50 in the nation. Its government-issued bonds have been ranked just above "junk". Some of the state’s leading intellectuals believe this collapse is a disaster that will harm Californians for years to come… California has always been a special place, with its own idea of what could be achieved in life. There is no such thing as a British dream. Even within America, there is no Kansas dream or New Jersey dream. But for California the concept is natural… California has always been able to reinvent itself, and some of its most hardcore critics still like the idea of it having a "dream".

Read full article [here].
by Paul Harris, The London Observer.

Posted: October 4th, 2009, by: admin. Categories: . Awaiting Comments.

I feel like a victim of a bait and switch. By this time next year we will be paying about $2,500 more than we planned when our son applied for admission a few months ago. Yet I find myself surprisingly calm. No one likes to pay more, but before I had a kid at the UC, I always saw the system as a bargain for students and their families. Despite all that has happened, it remains one of the best public universities in the country… Cutting tuition in good times and then raising it when times are tough is exactly the opposite of what the state should be doing. So while I don’t like it, I understand why our tuition bill is going up, and I can accept it, grudgingly, because the state is in the midst of the worst recession since the Great Depression. I just hope this is the end of it for a while.

Read full article [here].
by Daniel Weintraub, The Sacramento Bee.

Posted: October 4th, 2009, by: admin. Categories: . Awaiting Comments.

It’s dismaying to realize that the grandeur of Berkeley (and the remarkable success of the University of California system, of which Berkeley is the flagship) is being jeopardized by shortsighted politicians and California’s colossally dysfunctional budget processes. Berkeley is caught in a full-blown budget crisis with nothing much in the way of upside in sight. The school is trying to cope with what the chancellor, Robert Birgeneau, described as a "severe and rapid loss in funding" from the state, which has shortchanged Berkeley’s budget nearly $150 million this year, and cut more than $800 million from the higher education system as a whole. This is like waving goodbye to the futures of untold numbers of students. Chancellor Birgeneau denounced the state’s action as "a completely irresponsible disinvestment in the future of its public universities."

Read full article [here].
by Bob Herbert, The New York Times.

Posted: October 3rd, 2009, by: admin. Categories: . Awaiting Comments.

During the recession of the early 1990s, when fees shot up, CSU enrollment declined by 50,000, and it took the rest of the decade to recover. Even before this budget crisis, the Public Policy Institute of California predicted that by 2025, California would fall 1 million graduates short of expected needs. Maintaining quality, access and affordability at CSU, UC and the community colleges will be expensive, but letting these institutions falter will be far more costly to California’s economy and its people.

Read full article [here].
by The Editors, The Woodland Daily Democrat.

Posted: October 2nd, 2009, by: admin. Categories: . Awaiting Comments.

UC regents appear sure to increase student fees during this school year, most likely by about 32 percent, pushing it over $10,000 per year. Together with expenses for room, board and books, the cost of a UC education will shortly top $25,000 per year. CSU is not too far behind. By the Republican definition, this is only not a tax if you’re not a student. If you are a student or parent of one, chances are you’ll soon be paying about $3,000 more than you did last year. That’s a lot more than almost anyone will pay under last February’s temporary budget-balancing levies, but Republican lawmakers will never admit it’s a tax, even if that’s how it feels to those who must pay it.

Read full article [here].
by Thomas D. Elias, The Colusa Sun Herald.

Posted: October 2nd, 2009, by: admin. Categories: . Awaiting Comments.

The university, faced with $13 million in red ink, has cut 144 classes and 60 faculty over the past year. Huerta said the cancellations will keep her on campus an extra year… More bad news may lie ahead. In a meeting last week, trustees discussed yet another possible 10 percent hike next year. The CSU plans to ask for an $882 million increase in state funding above the current $2.33 billion. Included in that is $94 million that otherwise could be generated by a fee hike. CSU trustees are expected to vote on a budget proposal in November. That’s also when University of California regents should vote on a plan to raise fees by 30 percent. About 7,000 UC students statewide staged a protest last week.

Read full article [here].
by Patty Guerra, The Modesto Bee.

Posted: October 1st, 2009, by: admin. Categories: . Awaiting Comments.

The slip of paper said that all UC, CSU, CC and K-12 students, workers, and teachers were invited to the all day conference which would seek to "democratically decide on a state-wide action plan capable of winning this struggle," which would define the future of public education… Students also revealed the movement’s two main goals—to defend public education and reform the structure of the UC system—and six demands, including no student fee increases; no layoffs or furloughs; no paycuts to workers earning less than $40,000 a year; full disclosure of the budget; the halt of efforts to privatize California public education; and the election of UC regents by students, faculty and staff.

Read full article [here].
by Riya Bhattacharjee, The Berkeley Daily Planet.

Posted: October 1st, 2009, by: admin. Categories: . Awaiting Comments.

UC students and faculty need to focus on how to re-engineer their institution. They need to come up with intelligent ways to reduce costs. Professors, administrators and staff will have to be paid less. Their numbers will have to be reduced. Students and their parents will pay more in tuition. Ouch. The quality of instruction at UC is high. Could I suggest that faculty use their unpaid furlough days to provide free instruction to a group that desperately requires remedial education? They could provide seminars in basic mathematics, accounting, management, political science, and economics to the members of the state Legislature. If they could educate this group, it would go a long way toward solving California’s budget problems.

Read full article [here].
by John Mensinger, The Modesto Bee.

Posted: September 30th, 2009, by: admin. Categories: . Awaiting Comments.

The university has historically done a terrible job of making those accounts more transparent and publicly comprehensible, but university documents and executives who were interviewed last week left little doubt the "profits" were contractually obligated and the reserves committed to other high priority needs. The real target here should be a legislature that’s reduced the state’s share of university funding for more than 20 years and an electorate that still believes it can have high quality public goods on the cheap… It’s hardly news these days that every major California program is being slashed, and that many are likely to get slashed again. Indeed, in the cycle of recessionary budget-cutting, no program is more vulnerable than higher education, which lacks the constitutional protections of K-12 education, the political clout of the prison guards and the cushion of federal matching funds covering many health programs.

Read full article [here].
by Peter Schrag, The California Progress Report.

Posted: September 30th, 2009, by: admin. Categories: . Awaiting Comments.