"This has always been a place where working-class people could get an education and contribute to society," said pan-African studies professor Melina Abdullah, who led the "Walk of Shame." "If you take this away, you’re relegating them to jobs at Wal-Mart and fast food."
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by Hector Tobar, The Los Angeles Times.
I want you to know why we are bringing painful recommendations of fee increases to the University of California Board of Regents for its consideration. As a leader, it is important to be truthful and direct. For that reason, I must tell you that the worst is not over today. The economic crisis will not end quickly; the state has few options; it already faces a $7-billion projected deficit for next year; private giving is declining. Tragically, many Californians are unemployed; too many have lost their homes. That has led to a drastic cut in the university’s appropriations, one that marks the culmination of decades of underinvestment in students at all levels of public education.
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by Mark G. Yudof, The Chronicle of Higher Education.
Overall, the endowment’s value, including gifts from donors and $959 million in payouts for University operations, fell 27 percent to approximately $12.6 billion in the fiscal year ending Aug. 31. The largest previous loss in Stanford endowment was a decline of 6.2 percent in 1974… The drop in Stanford’s endowment is comparable to that of Harvard, whose endowment value declined 30 percent, and Yale, whose endowment value fell 29 percent. The similar numbers are due to all three schools’ reliance on so-called alternative assets such as commodities, real estate and private equity, which outperformed market indexes prior to 2007 but are less liquid than stocks and bonds. The investment strategy was largely pioneered by Yale’s chief investment officer, David Swensen.
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by Joanna Xu, The Stanford Daily.
…the University of California benefits the state because many of graduates remain here and contribute substantially to the state’s economic prosperity. Though a number of out-of-state students might opt to stay in California, other state economies could be hurt by a lack of investment in the local population. Incorporating the UC system into this model would undermine the purpose this university was created to achieve-to provide higher education for the residents of California. Ultimately, this university is meant to serve Californians. And the responsibility to fix the funding problem, no matter how complex or difficult a task it may be, lies with our state leaders and not with the federal government.
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by The Senior Editorial Board, The Daily Californian.
The announcement of the federal grants comes less than a week after the systemwide Day of Action by University of California campuses, which protested fee hikes and cutbacks to faculty and staff. "Our budget situation is very, very difficult," Yang said. However, the millions of dollars in research money can never be used to supplement faculty salaries or anything else. Witherell said the spending of competitive grants is meticulously tracked by the government. Public universities have five budgets, and there are firewalls between each one to prevent money for one purpose being spent for another. "The role of the grant process isn’t to replace what the state’s responsibility is," Capps said, adding that the government needs to make educational institutions a priority.
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by Giana Magnoli, The Santa Barbara Noozhawk.
California’s already faltering economy will be further damaged by severe cuts to to higher education, State Sen. Joe Simitian, D-Palo Alto, warned warned about 120 persons Saturday at a "town hall" meeting in Palo Alto’ City Council chambers… The middle class is getting hit, he warned. Even with scholarships, many middle-class students will slip through the cracks, Simitian said. The state’s future prosperity hangs in the balance, he warned. No economy in the world has grown after slashing funds to higher education, and California will slip in global competition, Simitian said.
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by Royston Sim, The Almanac.
We’re tired of hearing UC President Mark Yudof talk about making the UC more "efficient," more "competitive," about "human capital," not because we are against some notion of what it means to be efficient, to not be wasteful, but because his speech demonstrates he needs a more complex analytic of the dynamics over-taking the UC system in this crisis. A broad-based social movement that has the capacity to articulate an alternative collective vision to the narrow, corporatist special-interests that control our budgets and strategic planning will be necessary. Nobody is sure what this will look like yet. For now, we believe one of the first steps to building such a movement is to show that escalation and occupation is necessary and possible. We hope that groups of students, faculty, and everyday Californians can begin to see themselves, too, as people who can organize, occupy, and escalate to fight back.
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by Anon, Santa Cruz Indymedia.
Today, a college education has become a commodity like everything else. What’s worse, it’s become another wedge in the culture wars, a target for self-defeating class resentments and bogus beefs about elitism… And meanwhile, students are exploited for their revenue potential, saddled with crippling loans and pushed into high-paying fields like finance to pay off those loans. Our culture becomes the loser in that deal. So, yes, even if you are childless, you should support good and affordable higher education to your last breath. Because an educated society is a rational one, an affluent one and a moral one… We are a middle-class culture, and the idea of upward mobility is in our DNA. But education is the ladder that allows for that upward mobility. Without it, our middle class disappears and we become what just about every miserable society in history has become, a hard-and-fast divide of a tiny wealthy elite and a vast, scared population imprisoned by poverty and ignorance.
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by Wallace Baine, Santa Cruz Sentinel.
"The quality of our education has constantly been going down, and it’s frustrating to see that," said Sanchez, the 21-year-old president of the UC Students Assn. The state has been running billions of dollars in deficits, and the money to make it up has to come from somewhere. True enough, Sanchez said, but "are we seeking, hard enough, those alternate solutions?" The alternate solutions, however, all have lobbyists. He mentioned raising the vehicle license fee. Increasing that tax helped prompt Gray Davis’ 2003 recall; voiding that increase was Arnold Schwarzenegger’s first act as Davis’ replacement. Raising it again seems a political non-starter.
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by Cathleen Decker, The Los Angeles Times.
Another fee increase could be on the horizon for California State University students, who already are coping with higher prices this year. Officials in the 23-campus CSU system — which includes Fresno State — are shaping an ambitious financial plan for 2010-11. Under the preliminary blueprint discussed this week by trustees, the CSU would ask for an $882 million increase in state funding above the current $2.33 billion. One element in the plan is a request for $94 million to cover what could otherwise be generated by a 10 percent fee hike. It’s a CSU tactic that presses the state to make the first call on higher student prices. With California already facing a roughly $7 billion deficit next year, the odds seem long for success.
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by Cyndee Fontana, The San Jose Mercury News.