"The total magnitude of the cuts imposed in California is unprecedented," said Terry Hartle, senior vice president of the American Council on Education. "In the 30 years I’ve been watching higher education policy, I’ve never seen a state implement budget cuts of this size and scope." California’s future is at risk if fewer people earn college degrees, laid-off workers fail to develop the skills employers demand, and universities lose their ability to recruit and retain top researchers, experts say.

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by Terence Chea, The San Diego Union-Tribune.

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

"This notion of the California dream, the idea that every adult could go to college, we’ve been hacking away at that during every recession for the past 25 years, and this year may well be it," said Patrick M. Callan, president of the San Jose-based National Center for Public Policy and Education. "We’re coming out of this really tarnished." The governor and legislative leaders acknowledge that the cuts will be devastating, but say they have no choice. Already, campuses from Humboldt to San Diego are raising fees, shedding courses, slashing enrollment and compelling faculty and staff to take unpaid furlough days. Class sizes are up, library hours are down, and new programs and schools are on hold.

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by Larry Gordon, Gale Holland and Mitchell Landsberg, The San Luis Obispo Tribune.

Posted: July 31st, 2009, by: admin. Categories: . Awaiting Comments.

Following the announcement last week of mandated fee hikes at every California State University campus, school administrators, faced themselves with impending furloughs and cutbacks, have responded to frustrated claims from CSU students that the imposed 20 percent increase will hinder education. "What we do know is, it’ll matter," said Jane Sweetland, dean of enrollment at Cal State University Channel Islands (CSUCI), in Camarillo. "More than half of our students are going to school in addition to working. If they’re making minimum wage, how much extra will they need to work? We hope they won’t get sidetracked by the short-term gains and losses."

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by Paul Sisolak, The Ventura County Reporter.

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

The tangle over saving jobs or cutting wages has erupted in many workplaces during this recession. The state’s public universities are managing the fiscal crisis in part by cutting employee pay for one year. The University of California is imposing a sliding scale furlough for most employees that will reduce pay between 4 percent and 10 percent, depending on salary. California State University faculty agreed Wednesday to take two furlough days a month – as other CSU labor groups already have – amounting to a 10 percent pay cut. CSU employees will not get step increases. UC unions still are in negotiations. Community colleges are less centralized than the UCs and state universities. They’re governed by 72 local districts, so decisions on pay vary from school to school.

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by Laurel Rosenhall, The Sacramento Bee.

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

Blanca Misse, a UC Berkeley student and teacher assistant who attended the meeting, said that many high school students in Berkeley do not attend UC Berkeley because of fee increases. "Every day the university is getting more privatized," said Misse. "I don’t know a single student that comes to UC Berkeley from Berkeley, because they are always increasing fees. The university belongs to the people of California who pay taxes." However, Councilmember Laurie Capitelli said that, although he agrees that the university has problems, he doesn’t trust the state to do a better job. "I am very sympathetic to the union," said Capitelli. "However, it is ironic that the state Legislature is approving a budget that is cutting education and will raise the tuition at UCs, among other bad things. The irony for me is that we suggest that the Legislature can run the UC better than the regents. I think it will open up Pandora’s box."

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by Rio Bauce, The Berkeley Daily Planet.

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

1. The Economic Diversity of the Student Population. Californians should take pride in 6 different UC campuses typically making U.S. News and World Report’s list of the country’s "Top 50 National Universities," and also feel good about the fact that these campuses score so well within that top tier in educating students from lower income brackets. Using data from 2006 (passed on to me by an economic historian colleague who is better with numbers than I am) that provided a breakdown of percentages of students enrolled at top universities who had received Pell Grants (usually given to families with a total income of less than around $50,000), UC campuses were ranked numbers 1. (UCLA), 2. (Berkeley), 3. (UCSD), 4. (Davis), 5. (Irvine), and 6. (Santa Barbara). The spread among these six UC campuses ran from 37% of the student body being Pell Grant recipients at UCLA to 25% at UCSB; only two other top schools clocked in at over 20%: the University of Florida and the University of Texas-Austin.

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by Jeffrey Wasserstrom, The Huffington Post.

Posted: July 29th, 2009, by: admin. Categories: . Awaiting Comments.

Humboldt State University will be making $12.2 million in cuts to its budget, which will mean fewer courses, bigger class sizes, and cuts to student services, as a result the state’s decision to cut $3 billion from higher education, according to HSU officials. President Rollin Richmond announced in a campus-wide memo Monday that the $12.2 million will include $6.2 million through furloughs. The remaining $6 million in cuts has been allocated to the various divisions. Academic Affairs — which is in charge of all academic programs — will have

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by Donna Tam, The Eureka Times Standard.

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

Consider that California’s prisons set the state back more than $10 billion per year. The proposed plan to release 27,000 prisoners would move to home detention those prisoners with a year left on their sentences, as well as the elderly and infirm, and change sentencing and parole rules for inmates who show promise of rehabilitation. But inconceivably, for some policy leaders in Sacramento, the idea of setting those people free is more unthinkable than denying 40,000 students the right to higher education.

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by Charles B. Reed, The San Francisco Chronicle.

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

The budget deal Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger plans to sign Tuesday relies on roughly $8 billion in accounting maneuvers and questionable new revenue that experts say will result in what the governor vowed never to do: kick the problem down the road. "Next year’s budget will start with a very large shortfall even if there’s a good recovery," said Steve Levy, a senior economist at the Center for the Continuing Study of the California Economy in Palo Alto. And, Levy cautioned, the state’s finances will face additional challenges when federal economic stimulus funds run out.

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by Matthew Yi, The San Francisco Chronicle.

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

The $584 million budget deficit that has walloped the California State University system will translate into enrollment reduction, higher fees and "furlough Fridays" at the CSU Stanislaus campus. CSU Stanislaus’ share of the budget gap is approximately $14 million. The amount was reduced to between $8 million and $9 million through fee increases and management and staff furloughs. The gap was further whittled down on Thursday night, when the California Faculty Association agreed to take 24 furlough days through out the year. For students, the budget cuts will mean increased fees, stricter enrollment requirements and a campus that will look like a ghost town at least two Fridays out of the month.

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by Sabra Stafford, The Turlock Journal.

Posted: July 24th, 2009, by: admin. Categories: . Awaiting Comments.