…In the past 10 years state financial support has decreased by $600 million, or 29 percent, while enrollment has risen by 100,000, or 28 percent… "The Master Plan found that higher education was the way for California to invent and reinvent itself," Zingg said. "The farther and farther we move away from it, the more our chances for recovery and prosperity are jeopardized." To Zingg, this reduction in the state’s investment in higher education, which began even before the current recession, is "frustrating and disheartening and leaves a lot of bad feelings." It pains him that California spends as much each year — more than $10 billion — housing 170,000 prisoners as it does on higher education, which serves more than 3 million full- and part-time students, including 440,000 in the CSU alone. Sooner or later, he continued, "we have got to accomplish, in Sacramento and among a broad spectrum of movers and shakers, a reimagination and reaspiration of the Master Plan to make it work again."

Read full article [here].
by Robert Speer, The Chico News and Review.

Posted: August 20th, 2009, by: admin. Categories: . Awaiting Comments.

University of California President Mark Yudof warned Thursday that more budget cuts were in store for the 10-campus system when federal stimulus money runs out next year. Yudof predicted there would be about $600 million less to run one of the country’s largest university systems… Yudof said Californians must find a way to pay for higher education if they want to preserve the quality of state schools. He suggested higher taxes but did not elaborate. "It’s a question of being a great university or a crummy university," Yudof said. Democrats in the state Legislature have proposed taxing oil produced in California to raise money for higher education. But the idea has faced united opposition from Republican lawmakers.

Read full article [here].
by Samantha Young, The San Jose Mercury News.

Posted: August 20th, 2009, by: admin. Categories: . Awaiting Comments.

Like the rest of the economy, though, the endowment boom peaked in 2007, when the national average rate of return was 17 percent… By the time the 2008 fiscal year ended in June, things had turned negative for most (and merely flattened for some). By November 2008, endowments across the board were down 23 percent on average, just like the stock market. The bleeding slowed in 2009, but endowments still hemorrhaged money for the first part of the year. Most schools are living with losses of 25 to 30 percent. "It’s stunning," says John Walda, president of the National Association of College and University Budget Officers (NACUBO). "It’s completely unprecedented. No one saw it coming, and no one was immune."

Read full article [here].
by staff, Inland News Today.

Posted: August 20th, 2009, by: admin. Categories: . Awaiting Comments.

A recent letter signed by the chairmen of 23 departments at the University of California, San Diego, reminds me of terrifying scenes from the movie "Titanic." Some facing a crisis respond: Save your own skin; push your way into the lifeboat. The San Diego professors’ response to the state budget crisis was to suggest shuttering UC Merced — and maybe even UC Riverside and Santa Cruz — to save their own academic skins and direct money to what they consider to be "more worthy" campuses in the University of California system. Thankfully, UC President Mark Yudof quickly opposed their recommendation, expressing "100 percent" support for UC Merced, the system’s newest campus.

Read full article [here].
by Cheri Cruz, The Bakersfield Californian.

Posted: August 19th, 2009, by: admin. Categories: . Awaiting Comments.

Tuesday’s convocation — the annual right of passage marking the official start of a new school year — was rife with enmity, some of it directed at HSU President Rollin Richmond and much of it directed at gargantuan budget cuts coming from the state. A line of a couple dozen protesters donning black ribbons greeted California State University Chancellor Charles Reed when he arrived at the annual event Tuesday morning. Huge red signs detailing more than 70 classes canceled due to budget cuts overlooked the plaza in front of the Van Duzer Theater. And those entering the theater for the convocation, the official start to the new school year, were met by a sign reading "no confidence means no confidence," a not-so-subtle reminder that many faculty and staff at HSU remain displeased with Richmond and his administration.

Read full article [here].
by Thadeus Greenson, The Eureka Times-Standard.

Posted: August 19th, 2009, by: admin. Categories: . Awaiting Comments.

A dose of reality is needed right now. The large donations for the GMC have long ago dried up. The state and the CSU Chancellor’s office won’t be rescuing this unnecessary project anytime soon. The GMC was ill conceived and incompetently promoted and managed from the beginning. The poor judgment of SSU’s top administrators have put SSU’s academic programs in financial jeopardy as a consequence, irrespective of the current financial meltdown that afflicts the CSU and state… The recent revelations of questionable lending practices of SSU’s Foundation led by SSU’s top administrators have been publicly embarrassing but not really shocking, at least to many on campus. There is a lot more to be exposed, not the least of which involves the past lack of transparency involving all the financial dealings and transgressions associated with the Donald and Maureen Green Music Center.

Read full article [here].
by Steven C. Orlick, The Empire Report.

Posted: August 18th, 2009, by: admin. Categories: . Awaiting Comments.

For 13 years, University of California officials have wrestled with a seemingly insoluble problem: how to sustain a student body that reflects the state’s vast diversity without violating Proposition 209, the 1996 ballot measure banning race-based affirmative action. The latest attempt to formulate a policy that is both legal and capable of increasing diversity is a controversial new admissions mandate that will take effect in fall 2012… Sacramento’s 10-member Asian Pacific Islander Legislative Caucus…asked the UC regents to postpone their February vote, saying that a proposal with the potential to negatively affect the state’s third-largest ethnic group (Asian Americans make up 12% of California’s population) needed further study. And Steve Boilard of the state Legislative Analyst’s Office questioned "why UC is pursuing these changes at this time," noting that the enlarged eligibility pool represented a marked departure from the Master Plan for Higher Education.

Read full article [here].
by Marc B. Haefele, The Los Angeles Times.

Posted: August 18th, 2009, by: admin. Categories: . Awaiting Comments.

Shaky state financial support for public research universities threatens American higher education’s global standing, says a new working paper from the National Bureau of Economic Research that examines trends in scientific publications. Since the 1980s, the growth of scientific research, as measured by scholarly papers and citations, in Europe and East Asia has outpaced that of American universities, in part because countries in those regions have dedicated significant resources to higher education. The American share of world scientific citations, for example, dropped from 52 percent in 1992 to 42 percent in 2003.

Read full article [here].
by Karin Fischer, The Chronicle of Higher Education.

Posted: August 17th, 2009, by: admin. Categories: . Awaiting Comments.

San Diego State is having to undertake major budget cuts as a result of the loss in funding caused by California’s budget crisis. Here’s a look at the fallout at other local public colleges, and how two major private institutions are dealing with the bad economy.

Read full article [here].
by Eleanor Yang Su, San Diego Union-Tribune.

Posted: August 16th, 2009, by: admin. Categories: . Awaiting Comments.

Well, you may have read that teachers are being furloughed, student admission is being capped and fees are being raised at California colleges. Amid all this, the state retains the most liberal veterans’ educational benefit in the country. That tells you something about the nagging migraine known as California’s budget. We’re in deep water partly because we granted generous benefits at a time of plenty — and no one in Sacramento sees any political gain in reducing them during a time of want. I don’t want to sound like I don’t appreciate veterans. I do. They’ve given up a lot. But California is really, truly in bad financial shape. And in what is known as the "college fee waiver," it grants a benefit that only one other state, Indiana, even comes close to offering (with more strings).

Read full article [here].
by Scott Herhold, The San Jose Mercury News.

Posted: August 15th, 2009, by: admin. Categories: . Awaiting Comments.