Students in the University of California system next year will probably pay 44% more — $10,300 — in basic student fees than they did in 2008. The fee increase comes in the face of declining and unreliable financial support from the state of California… A Times editorial published shortly after the compact was announced in May 2004 expressed skepticism that the agreement would improve the financial fortunes of the UC system, saying that it would push student fees to nearly $10,000 by the 2010-11 school year. Fees will top $10,000 all right — but a full year before The Times predicted. Below is The Times’ editorial from May 17, 2004.
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by The Editors, The Los Angeles Times.
Posted: September 22nd, 2009, by: admin. Categories: . Awaiting Comments.
What’s clear is that the UC system is less and less accessible to everyday Californians, who are already languishing in a flailing public school system. Meanwhile, the state’s economy depends heavily on UC graduates, who are both innovators and laborers in every economic sphere. We know how we got here. Prop. 13’s budget-starving effects have intersected effectively with the prevailing inclination to privatize just about everything. The global financial crisis — and California’s particularly harsh variation of it — created the opening for long-imagined cuts across the board. But the latest budget moves have jolted faculty and students awake.
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by Rachel Brahinsky, The San Francisco Bay Guardian.
Posted: September 22nd, 2009, by: admin. Categories: . Awaiting Comments.
As a board composed entirely of students, we understand the concerns of the community and each of us has personally felt the struggles inflicted by the budget cuts. We acknowledge that administrators largely have their hands tied this year, and we each have to sacrifice in the wake of unprecedented budget cuts. But though we will bear our burden cooperatively this year, that’s not to say this system can continue. Enough is enough — enough tuition hikes, enough pay cuts, enough layoffs, enough enrollment cuts. Now is the time to advocate for future change, and the walkout is an important symbol and initial step to effect this change on a broad scale. To this aim, we urge students to participate in the walkout, educate themselves and show voters that students do value public higher education. Most importantly, do not allow yourselves to be sucked into unproductive extremism. This movement can only be successful if participants remain united behind a cause, and pointing fingers will not achieve that end. It’s time to move forward.
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by The Senior Editorial Board, The Daily Californian.
Posted: September 22nd, 2009, by: admin. Categories: . Awaiting Comments.
Days before the scheduled UC walkout, students, educators and administrators remain unclear how the event will shake out. Some professors plan to teach as usual, while others will hold teach-ins to educate students about California higher education. Faculty leaders said they are neutral. "We regard it as a matter of individual conscience," said Christopher Kutz, chairman of UC-Berkeley’s Academic Senate… Finding a clear, unified voice has been a problem of late at UC. All the groups talk about a "movement," but each seems to have different goals in mind. Each group is beset with its own, unique problems. About 2,000 staff members are being laid off, professors are taking unpaid days off and students are being forced to pay significantly more.
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by Matt Krupnick, The San Jose Mercury News.
Posted: September 20th, 2009, by: admin. Categories: . Awaiting Comments.
Even in the best of times, few California households can easily afford a 44% increase in their children’s college tuition within two years. The proposal to raise University of California undergraduate fees to about $10,300 a year by the fall of 2010 — including a midyear fee hike in January — would come as a financial shock to many families and a real hardship for some. Yet there is no way to avoid at least some tuition increase. The university has made substantial cuts, including work furloughs and layoffs. Maintaining UC’s reputation as a top destination for undergraduates, as well as a graduate research and publishing institution, is a good investment for its students and California.
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by The Editors, The Los Angeles Times.
Posted: September 19th, 2009, by: admin. Categories: . Awaiting Comments.
On Wednesday, a raucous protest interrupted a meeting of the president and regents of the University of California. Next Thursday, a walkout will bring picket lines, empty classrooms, closed offices and mass rallies from Berkeley to San Diego. What brings this assault on the calm of the world’s finest public university? Is it free speech? The Afghan war? No, the University of California is under assault of another kind. It is in grave danger from draconian budget cuts coming down from Sacramento and decisions made in the heat of the moment by the president’s office. In response, a broad coalition of professors, unions and students are banding together to defend the institution they love.
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by Richard Walker, The Oakland Tribune.
Posted: September 19th, 2009, by: admin. Categories: . Awaiting Comments.
There is a budget crisis, but there is also a crisis of priorities. The leaders of our state-our own UC administrators and the California legislature-have failed to lead responsibly. That is why students, faculty and staff must organize together… The roots of this crisis can be found in Proposition 13 and California’s broken tax structure; in our state’s two-thirds majority requirement for passing any legislation; in our refusal to tax oil production; and in our prioritizing prison building over building universities and schools. However, these problems are compounded by the actions of the UC administration. Our state’s economic crisis requires long-term solutions, but the way in which this crisis has been seized upon to begin a program of privatizing the UC system requires that we act now. The administration has refused alternatives to its proposal for closing the budget gap… redirecting the surpluses created by the UC’s revenue generating units (such as its medical centers), cutting the UC’s highest-paid executives and reducing the massive proliferation of administrative positions in the UC Office of the President.
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by Mary June Flores and Isaac Miller, The Daily Californian.
Posted: September 18th, 2009, by: admin. Categories: . Awaiting Comments.
Students have been asked to pay more of the costs that our university’s academic excellence requires, and faculty, administrators and other workers have been asked to make sacrifices so the burden on the students may be lessened. The sacrifices made by the faculty can only last so long and go so far. Extending furloughs, in order to lessen the tuition burden on students, will undermine the very institution they seek access to. Professors are both a standard and necessary condition for quality of education. The best professors both attract the top talent and produce it. Professors of the quality UC Berkeley is able to attract have alternative options. But for whatever reason, our professors choose to teach here. They will not continue to make that choice if they are continually forced to take pay cuts…
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by James Morris, The Daily Californian.
Posted: September 18th, 2009, by: admin. Categories: . Awaiting Comments.
Go back 25 years, when the 100 or so California community colleges had free tuition and virtually any high school graduate could enter, regardless of grades or future university plans. At that time, those campuses primarily offered two-year associate degree programs ranging from trades such as police work, nursing and culinary arts to programs designed to prepare students to transition to the upper-tier, four-year colleges and universities. Students entering community colleges for the first time or returning this semester are finding the campus awash with students, while at the same time the colleges are working with reduced budgets. This has meant that many community college students can’t get into the classes they need to graduate, or are sitting in overcrowded classrooms. But the cost to even get that far has increased.
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by Jennifer Bonnett, The Lodi News-Sentinel.
Posted: September 18th, 2009, by: admin. Categories: . Awaiting Comments.
I believe I understand the state’s economic problems well. I believe I understand the necessity for getting jobs is fundamental to everything. For self worth, economic growth, a future for the next generation, the employment base has to expand. We are probably going to come out of this recession behind the rest of the country instead of leading the rest of the country. Long term, not only because of my background in economics but because of my background as a teacher, I see that the education system – particularly the higher education system – is a crucial part of our competitive advantage with other states and other countries.
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by Martin Wisckol, The Orange County Register.
Posted: September 17th, 2009, by: admin. Categories: . Awaiting Comments.
