California’s monetary guillotine cut higher education at its core. And now college students have assumed the burden of subsidizing the state’s debt. The recent actions taken by Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger and Legislature to balance the state’s $26 billion deficit contradict a promise made to college-age Californians more than four decades ago… The plan was founded on the principle that investing in public education would yield economic returns that would help the state flourish. And until last month, it did.

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by the staff, The Collegian.

Posted: August 28th, 2009, by: admin. Categories: . Awaiting Comments.

"It has seemed lately as if the CSU Board of Trustees, the State Legislature, and the Governor don’t care about the welfare of the University. Events such as this one try to show that cuts — so easy to make when they are just numbers on a ledger — have consequences in real people’s lives. And those people have a voice, and a vote." … "Students’ voices are becoming more and more important in elections. If all the young people attending community colleges and CSU’s voted for governors and assembly members who made education a priority, we wouldn’t be in this mess," she said.

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by Ani Istanboulian, The Collegian.

Posted: August 28th, 2009, by: admin. Categories: . Awaiting Comments.

UC Berkeley’s budget cuts are its share of an $813 million reduction in state funding to the 10-campus UC system, which the Berkeley campus is hoping to overcome with a hike in student fees and tuition, layoffs, service reductions, and faculty and staff furloughs. A 9.3 percent hike in UC fees for undergraduate tuition and other expenses — including health insurance — means that California residents will now have to pay $9,748 for two semesters at the Berkeley campus. Tuition and all fees for non-residents, including health insurance, will be $32,417. The university has also cut administrative and service units by more than 20 percent while academic courses took an 8 percent cut.

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by Riya Bhattacharjee, The Berkeley Daily Planet.

Posted: August 27th, 2009, by: admin. Categories: . Awaiting Comments.

If Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger and the Legislature continue to neglect public higher education in next year’s budget, it is almost a certainty that many majors will cease to exist at San Francisco State, and students interested in those career fields will have to go elsewhere (along with the businesses that seek those graduates).

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by Shawn Whalen, The San Francisco Chronicle.

Posted: August 27th, 2009, by: admin. Categories: . Awaiting Comments.

Gonzalez says the university has no choice – the cuts are coming from the state Legislature. But Sociology Professor Kevin Wehr says the university could do a better job with its foundation – or investment dollars. Wehr is president of the campus’ Faculty Association. "The foundation work is meant to bring money into campus, it’s meant to develop the campus and the campus has actually been forced to pay off debts that the foundation has incurred. That’s a problem." Wehr and other faculty members plan to hold demonstrations on the first few days of fall classes next week to protest the furloughs and student fee hikes.

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by Steve Milne, Capital Public Radio.

Posted: August 27th, 2009, by: admin. Categories: . Awaiting Comments.

Fresno State senior Myra Miranda scrambled to fill her schedule after budget cuts erased two of her fall classes. The new schedule didn’t fit her work hours, so Miranda had to quit one of her two jobs — and also dig into her savings to pay higher student fees. Yet she counts herself lucky to have a full schedule.

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by Cyndee Fontana, The Fresno Bee.

Posted: August 26th, 2009, by: admin. Categories: . Awaiting Comments.

The San Francisco campus is cutting $30.2 million this year. That means it’s offering 354 fewer classes than last year, turning away dozens of lecturers, requiring employees to take two unpaid days off each month – and raising student fees 30 percent higher than last fall. "I’m pissed because they cut, like, a ton of classes, and we’re paying more money – it’s stressful," said sophomore Elle Sandbloom, standing in the crowd of business majors forced to remain outside of Professor Scott Jerris’ Accounting 100 class because there was no room inside. Students register online at a time assigned to them. But because so many courses have been eliminated, many students found that classes were full by the time they were told to sign up. So all across campus, students were "crashing" classes – showing up at the classroom door and hoping for mercy from professors willing to take on additional students. It’s like going standby on an airline.

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by Nanette Asimov, The San Francisco Chronicle.

Posted: August 26th, 2009, by: admin. Categories: . Awaiting Comments.

Fewer California residents likely will be admitted to the University of California next year, but UC Berkeley plans to admit more students from other states and countries in order to increase its fee revenue, Chancellor Robert Birgeneau said Wednesday. Faced with a $150 million deficit — and several thousand California students whose costs are not being covered by the state — Birgeneau said the campus would bring in more nonresident students next year. Unlike California residents, who pay significantly discounted fees, out-of-state and international students pay the entire cost of their educations. Just 25 percent of the university’s budget comes from state funds, down from a high of 70 percent.

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by Matt Krupnick, The San Jose Mercury News.

Posted: August 26th, 2009, by: admin. Categories: . Awaiting Comments.

Imagine the role that the administrative leadership of University of California and the newly created "Commission on the Future of the University of California" could play if, instead of capitulating to the decline of a university that is a model for the world, they sought to educate the public about how crucial the health of the university is to the long-term social and economic health of the state. The Commission, brainchild of Regents’ Chair Russell Gould, could take the lead in forging the public consensus necessary to halt the erosion of state support of public education. Specifically, members could endorse viable alternatives to the highly damaging and economically counterproductive cuts to UC and its sister CSU and Community College systems.

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by Glenn Levine, Mark LeVine, Jack Miles, and Jane O. Newman, The Orange County Register.

Posted: August 23rd, 2009, by: admin. Categories: . Awaiting Comments.

California State University students have sued the system’s board of trustees for raising fees a second time this year, alleging that the fee hikes amount to a breach of contract. Students had already been billed for the fall semester – and many had paid the fees – when trustees voted last month to raise the price an additional 20 percent, the suit says, adding $672 to the annual cost for undergraduates.

Read full article [here].
by Laurel Rosenhall, The Sacramento Bee.

Posted: August 22nd, 2009, by: admin. Categories: . Awaiting Comments.