The final package erased a projected $41.6-billion deficit by setting the budget at $130 billion for the next fiscal year and making $6.7 billion in cuts that take effect immediately. The gap was closed in these ways: 36% spending cuts, 30% new taxes and other revenue, 19% federal money, 13% in new borrowing and 2% vetoes, according to the administration.

California’s two massive university systems, UC and Cal State, will take a considerable hit.

At the 23-campus Cal State system, Chancellor Charles B. Reed said plans to reduce enrollment by about 10,000 students will go ahead.

UC President Mark G. Yudof said that "lower spending for higher education ultimately erodes student opportunity, innovation, healthcare and medical research, and economic growth for California."

Read full article [here].
by Jordan Rau , The Los Angeles Times.

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

California’s historic leadership in higher education is in decline, with the state failing to provide a new generation of low-income, heavily Latino and immigrant students with the college prospects their parents and grandparents enjoyed, according to a study released Thursday.

The state ranks near the top nationally for residents over age 65 who have at least an associate of arts degree, but places only 29th in the nation for those between 25 and 34 who have the same level of education, the study said. Unless the pattern of shrinking opportunities is reversed, the state risks a serious shortage of educated workers to compete in a global economy, the study warned.

Read full article [here].
by Gale Holland, The Los Angeles Times.

Posted: February 13th, 2009, by: admin. Categories: . Awaiting Comments.

The most recent proposal to close California’s $40 billion budget deficit continues to evolve. Lawmakers also are waiting to see how much federal money California will receive under the federal stimulus bill. Here are provisions in the latest budget proposal: Reduces education spending by $8.6 billion over two years. Imposes 10 percent cut to University of California and California State University systems.

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

Posted: February 12th, 2009, by: admin. Categories: . Awaiting Comments.

Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger and the top four legislative leaders have again been meeting behind closed doors as California teeters at the brink of fiscal insolvency. Rank-and-file lawmakers, special interest groups and the public have been shut out of the bargaining process. There have been no public hearings, no chance for input — and that has some folks riled. They worry about not having time to properly scrutinize — and help shape — a blueprint expected to chart California’s fiscal course until the middle of 2010.

Read full article [here].
by Eric Bailey, The Los Angeles Times.

Posted: February 11th, 2009, by: admin. Categories: . Awaiting Comments.

…the state’s business leaders need to ask themselves: Given our clout, why isn’t a budget solution our highest priority? Is it responsible to leverage a financial crisis for non-budgetary policy changes? Why aren’t we doing more to protect community colleges and the university system – the backbone of California’s economy? This last point is especially baffling. Cal-chamber harps constantly about how low-tax Nevada is recruiting our state’s industries. It seems not to realize that our neighbor to the east has to recruit, because it doesn’t have a university system that produces the kind of technical and economic innovations that California’s campuses do.

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

Posted: January 12th, 2009, by: admin. Categories: . Awaiting Comments.

California taxpayers have been happy to disinvest from public education for decades now, despite the heavy impact it’s had on our state’s communities and the impact it will have on our future economic growth. The UC system is already suffering from their stinginess… The university must stay the course when it comes to focusing on the education of California residents. In turn, California residents must wake up about the importance of funding UC.

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

Posted: January 11th, 2009, by: admin. Categories: . Awaiting Comments.

Lillian Taiz, president of the CFA and a history teacher, believes this decline didn’t just come out of nowhere. There have been a number of tipping points, but term limits for legislators, she believes, has led particularly to "the worst of short-term thinking in a world that demands long-term vision." The result is that we’ve seen a slow erosion of education as the engine of progress and opportunity in California. That idea of upward mobility, however, is deeply rooted in American thought and practice.

Read full article [here].
by Pia Lopez, The Sacramento Bee.

Posted: January 11th, 2009, by: admin. Categories: . Awaiting Comments.

Reeling from a state budget crisis that shows no sign of abating, California’s two premier public university systems are facing salary freezes, construction shutdowns and curbs on enrollment.

Read full article [here].
by Patricia Yollin and Jim Doyle, The San Francisco Chronicle.

Posted: January 10th, 2009, by: admin. Categories: . Awaiting Comments.

Faced with a state budget crisis that shows no sign of abating, University of California President Mark Yudof will ask the university’s governing Board of Regents to consider freezing the salaries of top administrators and to limit freshman enrollment… Yudof said he was pained to propose any kind of limit because he sees UC as being in the "opportunity business."

Read full article [here].
by Patricia Yollin, The San Francisco Chronicle.

Posted: January 10th, 2009, by: admin. Categories: . Awaiting Comments.

More students have applied to attend a University of California campus next year than any year in UC’s history… About 127,000 students applied to attend at least one of UC’s nine undergraduate campuses during the fall 2009 term – a 5 percent increase over last year. During sound economic times, that would be more students than UC campuses have room to admit. Only 77,521 of the 121,005 undergraduates who applied for 2008 – a UC record at the time – were accepted. But these are not sound economic times for the state’s university systems. UC regents warned in November that they would cut freshman enrollment for 2009 if the state didn’t give them additional money. The UC system was already enrolling about 10,000 more students than the state gave them money for.

Read full article [here].
by Robert Faturechi, The Sacramento Bee.

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