The New Deal generation of California leaders, including Governor Edmund Pat Brown, appreciated the fact that the government’s investment in public higher education was a path to a healthier, thriving state. Fast-forward to today and we see the CSU hobbled by years of draconian budget cuts, an over-worked and underpaid faculty, and an ever growing share of the teaching load taken up by even lower-paid part-timers.

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by Joseph Palermo, Huffington Post.

Posted: September 26th, 2015, by: admin. Categories: . Awaiting Comments.

The budget deal signed between University of California President Janet Napolitano and Gov. Jerry Brown in May signifies a change in the retirement plan offered to new employees that faculty members and experts believe will affect the future of the UC system… the legislature has treated the California State University system more generously when it comes to pension obligations than the UC. According to a report presented to the Committee on Compensation at the UC Regents meeting in July, the total remuneration offered to a UC employee is 10 percent less than what is offered to faculty at other universities. In addition, UC benefits do not compensate for lower-than-market salaries in the calculation of total faculty remuneration.

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by Shreya Maskara, The Daily Bruin.

Posted: September 24th, 2015, by: admin. Categories: . Awaiting Comments.

The big flaw Konczal identifies here is that differences in university programs “are a determinant of future income, but they are only a minor one. Family income, occupation, race, and gender are going to be much more important to the calculation.” As evidence, Konczal points to a finding from the Pew Charitable Trust’s Economic Mobility Project (see accompanying graphic, via Matt Breunig). It shows, among other things, that “those born in the top 20 percent who don’t have a college degree are two and a half times more likely to end up in the top 20 percent than people born in the bottom 20 percent who do have a college degree.” In other words, “a white male born rich who attends a bad school will get significantly better equity pricing than a woman of color born poor who attends a better school, because the former will have a higher expected future income.” The rich will get richer.

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by Michael Hiltzik, The Los Angeles Times.

Posted: September 4th, 2015, by: admin. Categories: . Awaiting Comments.

A decade has passed since America’s newest research university opened amid farmland in Central California. And surprisingly little on the landscape has changed. Cows still graze alongside UC Merced. There’s no student union, and some researchers are based miles away at a former Air Force base… Construction of the university, which broke ground in 2002, began as dramatically rising construction costs collided with massive reductions in state higher education spending after the 2008 economic downturn. By 2010, California was spending $1.6 billion less on higher education than it did a decade earlier… A decade is far too little time to judge the campus, said Janet Napolitano, president of the UC system and a former U.S. Homeland Security secretary and Arizona governor. She cited 50-year-old UC Irvine as an example. “UC Irvine 50 years ago was a pile of dirt,” she said. “Now it’s a center of bioengineering and other disciplines in Orange County. There’s a whole cluster or companies around there.”

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by Matt Krupnick, The San Jose Mercury News.

Posted: August 24th, 2015, by: admin. Categories: . Awaiting Comments.

As our state’s third largest employer, most would acknowledge that UC has long served a vital public mission beyond academics, health care delivery and research — as a gateway to the middle class for generations of Californians who built careers there. But today, UC is relinquishing this role — and in doing so, is enabling a growing shadow workforce to be exploited… an army of subcontractors — primarily people of color employed by private firms — to do these same jobs for as much as 53 percent less in pay, little to no benefits, and no opportunity for advancement or a voice on the job. To be clear, UC is not saving 53 percent on labor costs. In fact, when you factor in the overhead and profits that private firms build on top of the poverty wages they pay their workers, UC might not be saving anything at all.

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by Kathryn Lybarger, The Contra Costa Times.

Posted: August 22nd, 2015, by: admin. Categories: . Awaiting Comments.

Yesterday, I tweeted from a study that was done by this group called Nexus which calculated the per student annual taxpayer contribution for different kinds of educational institutions in this country — so, the value of all of the money taxpayers give institutions. For the typical community college in this country, it comes out to [between $2,000 and] $4,000 per student per year. For a typical state school, it’s $10,000 per year. For Harvard, it’s $48,000 per year. For Yale, it’s $69,000 per student per year. And for Princeton, it’s $105,000 per student per year of taxpayer subsidy. That’s obscene! That’s why I’m upset.

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by Staff, NPR.

Posted: August 22nd, 2015, by: admin. Categories: . Awaiting Comments.

The National Institute’s report is a reminder that it’s wise to ask who benefits in a shift in public employee pensions from defined-benefit to defined-contribution plans. Not the taxpayers, and not the employees. That leaves the major promoters of public-pension panic: Wall Street investment operators, such as billionaire John Arnold. Wall Street collects billions in fees from big public pension funds, but its take from millions of individual retirement accounts is potentially much higher. The lesson for taxpayers and public employees alike is clear: when you hear “experts” talking about how ending defined benefit plans will save everybody money, keep your hands on your wallets.

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by Michael Hiltzik, The Los Angeles Times.

Posted: August 21st, 2015, by: admin. Categories: . Awaiting Comments.

After political maneuvering and student protests, in-state tuition for UC and Cal State undergraduates won’t increase for the next two years, continuing freezes implemented three years ago. But on-campus room and board can outweigh tuition at many of those schools. In 2015-16, the average cost of UC undergraduates’ on-campus residence with a full meal plan will be about $14,200, which is $1,000, or 7.6%, higher than in 2011, when tuition last went up. In the Cal State system, where a smaller share of students live on campus, those costs will be $12,535, up $1,928, or 18%, since 2011.

Posted: August 16th, 2015, by: admin. Categories: . Awaiting Comments.

The state Senate recently passed a bill that would require UC contractors to provide wages and benefits equal to direct employees. UC opposes the legislation, which is pending in the Assembly, saying it would increase costs by $66 million and “create new administrative burdens.” Contract workers say the benefits are just as important as the pay. For two years Consuelo Barrera has worked full time for Performance First Building Services, a custodial contractor at UC Berkeley, cleaning up after sporting events. She makes $10 an hour, $1 above the state minimum, and said an eventual boost to $15 still won’t enable her to afford costly health insurance premiums offered by the company. UC custodial workers nearby start at $15.52 an hour, and would jump to $18.25 an hour after two years. Although Barrera said she makes $10 an hour, UC has paid Performance First about $20 an hour for a janitorial worker, according to contract documents.

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by Chris Kirkham, The Los Angeles Times.

Posted: August 12th, 2015, by: admin. Categories: . Awaiting Comments.

Part 1: The federal government should give money directly to states so they can refund their colleges and universities. Part 2: The states need to quit their budget-slashing ways, and likely increase their funding for higher ed, much the same way that they cover a minimum amount of Medicaid spending. Part 3: In order to qualify for the new wad of federal cash, colleges will need to keep their prices down. This, more or less, was the basic outline of President Obama’s plan for free community college, which he unveiled right before the State of the Union. It’s also the core of presidential candidate Bernie Sanders’ plan to eliminate tuition at all public colleges. And now, it’s the centerpiece of Hillary Clinton’s big new proposal to to bring down the cost of higher education, which she unveiled Monday.

Read full article [here].
by Jordan Weissmann, Slate.

Posted: August 10th, 2015, by: admin. Categories: . Awaiting Comments.