It appears that the group that will be most disadvantaged by our funding challenges are not those who are truly low income people but rather the State’s middle-income families. Specifically, current federal, state and university financial aid plans protect the poor; however, the middle class – that is, those whose family incomes fall in the $60,000 to $120,000 range – receive limited aid and the current disinvestment in higher education by the State of California will only exacerbate their plight. Public universities are the conduits into mainstream society for those from financially disadvantaged backgrounds and the key to the American dream of an increasingly better life for the middle class. The State of California’s completely irresponsible disinvestment in the future of its public universities, is an epitaph, not for UC Berkeley – which has survived as a great university for 141 years and will do so for the next 141 – but for the shortsightedness of our State government for its citizens. That is the real tragedy.

Read full article [here].
by Robert Birgeneau, UC Berkeley News.

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

At a time when California’s budget woes demonstrate a broken political system, it is surely unwise to promote ideas that can only further split the UC system from the state government on which its existence depends. The blindness of the UCSD faculty who signed the Scull letter to political reality is hardly unique in American higher education, but it presages important debates to come: What is the proper role for the UC system in the 21st Century? How can the state maximize social and economic value from essentially elitist institutions? If the state can ever escape its budget woes, there will be time for such debates. In the meantime, UCSD shouldn’t go out of its way to bite the hand that feeds it. For now they’re just taking away your money; depending on how angry they get, they might take away your independence.

Read full article [here].
by James T. Shea, The San Diego Union-Tribune.

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

The California State University system budget numbers are in, and they’re grim.

Chico State University President Paul Zingg said over the past 10 years, state funding has declined 25 percent, while enrollments have gone up 30 percent.

"We have been challenged to do more with less and we can’t do that anymore," the president said.

Tuesday the CSU trustees voted to increase student fees by another 20 percent, in addition to a 10 percent increased approved in May. Also, the trustees voted for cuts the equivalent of two unpaid days off work each month for employees to meet a $584 million decrease in funding from the state.

Read full article [here].
by Heather Hacking, The Chico Enterprise-Record.

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

Fresno State will chop hundreds of jobs, slash class sections and even shut down for several days to offset massive budget cuts driven by the state’s poor economy. President John Welty on Thursday outlined a tentative plan to close a $44.6 million budget gap this fiscal year. The plan depends heavily on hefty student fee increases and two-day-a-month furloughs for nearly every employee, although not all employee unions have yet agreed. Those measures leave the university still short by nearly $16.4 million, he said. Closing the remaining gap will require trimming 135 management and staff jobs through layoffs and attrition, eliminating nearly 1,200 fall class sections and cutting work for nontenured faculty jobs.

Read full article [here].
by Cyndee Fontana, The Fresno Bee.

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

Either way, President Alexander says, the nation’s largest university system has taken a hit that will be felt for years. "If California wants to take the vast majority of their budget cuts out of the hides of children and students, then California will pay dearly for that in the decades to come," Alexander says. "In the long run, every Californian will negatively be impacted by the limitations of enrollment and the lack of our ability to serve more students. That will impact every Californian down the road."

Read full article [here].
by Ryan ZumMallen, The Long Beach Post.

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

With a tentative state budget agreement that gouges almost $3 billion from colleges and universities, CSU trustees voted Tuesday to raise student fees by 20 percent. They also gave campuses unprecedented power to disenroll thousands of students who keep taking classes despite having enough credits to graduate. It’s part of an overall effort by CSU to cut $584 million from its $4.6 billion budget by reducing enrollment, laying-off employees and slashing course offerings. CSU employee unions also are wrestling with whether to accept unpaid furloughs amounting to a 10 percent pay cut, or allow additional layoffs to sweep through the system.

Read full article [here].
by Nanette Asimov, The San Francisco Chronicle.

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

…the creation of the university in 1868 embodied a genuinely noble democratic idea, one simultaneously embracing egalitarianism and excellence. The state of California determined to establish an elite public university that could rival any private institution on the East Coast, and one that, in addition, would be effectively tuition-free to any qualified California resident. There’s something admirably American, and perhaps admirably western, about the whole notion. This would be an institution free of class and familial and financial restrictions; it would pursue excellence without regard to such feudal vestiges, and it would open up opportunity to those formerly excluded… But it now looks as if those days are over. It won’t happen overnight, and it won’t happen completely. But absent an unlikely, massive injection of private funding, the university is on an inexorable glide path downward.

Read full article [here].
by Erik Tarloff, The Atlantic.

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

Bay Area school districts and colleges, which have already slashed millions of dollars from their programs this year, are bracing for more layoffs, unpaid vacation days and a shortened academic year as a result of California’s tentative budget deal. Crafted by top lawmakers on Monday to close the state’s $26 billion deficit, the agreement contains the deep cuts to public education that the governor proposed in late May. The new reductions will include an estimated $6.1 billion from school districts and community colleges – including cuts made retroactively for the 2008-09 academic year – and an additional $2.8 billion from the University of California and California State University systems.

Read full article [here].
by Katy Murphy and Theresa Harrington, The San Jose Mercury News.

Posted: July 21st, 2009, by: admin. Categories: . Awaiting Comments.

In the context of California’s gigantic budget dilemma, the California State University (CSU) today voted to increase the State University Fee by 20%. This tuition increase at the country’s largest public university system marks a 30% increase over the last three months; a 10% increase was already implemented in May… The vote was widely expected by stakeholders throughout the system. Written into law by the California government over fifty years ago, the CSU system is intended to provide an accessible, affordable, quality higher education to the people of California. However, beginning in the early 1990’s and continuing since then, the state legislature has repeatedly eliminated general fund support for not only the CSU, but also the UC and Community College systems.

Read full article [here].
by Miles Nevin, The Long Beach Post.

Posted: July 21st, 2009, by: admin. Categories: . Awaiting Comments.

Now, even as California continues to pay its bills with IOUs, the University of California, the nation’s leading public university, is being forced to cut its budget by $813 million — or 20%. It is highly unlikely that these cuts will be reduced by a budget agreement in Sacramento. UC Berkeley, will see recruitment of faculty drop from the normal 100 positions a year to 10. At 28,000-student UC San Diego, ranked along with Berkeley and UCLA among the world’s top 20 research universities, recruitment has been halted. More than 300 UC scientists have issued a white paper warning Schwarzenegger that the sharp reduction endangers the 10-campus system’s position as the premier public university in the United States and could have a negative impact on California’s future economic growth.

Read full article [here].
by Kevin O'Leary, Time Magazine.

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