We’d like to add 10,000 more” to the systemwide enrollment of 180,000, Napolitano said in an interview with reporters and editors in The Times’ Washington bureau. Legislative leaders are debating how much money to add to the state budget to expand UC enrollment, but are unlikely to go that far, she added, saying: “They may go halfway.” Even if the Legislature approves a significant increase, the full effect would not be felt until the class that enters college in the fall of 2016, Napolitano said. “We’re late in the process” to be adding students this year, she said, noting that California’s budget schedule and the university’s application cycle don’t mesh well. “Realistically, for this fall,” the UC system would be able to add 500 to 600 students, who would be taken off campus wait lists, she said.

Read full article [here].
by David Lauter, The Los Angeles Times.

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

The University of California Board of Regents is concerned that the budget deal UC President Janet Napolitano hashed out with Gov. Jerry Brown doesn’t address the system’s plummeting in-state admission rates, leaving the crucial logjam for the Legislature to fix… “We’re losing tens of thousands of students who are eligible each year for UC or CSU,” Johnson said. “I think that’s a big issue.” Michele Siqueiros, president of the Los Angeles-based Campaign for College Opportunity, agreed that “to not provide enrollment growth funding for UC or enough for CSU … is really shortsighted.” The wage gap between high school graduates and college graduates keeps growing, yet this deal does little to ensure that more low-income, first-in-the-family students can afford and find spots in state schools, she said. “I don’t think it bodes well for the future of the state.”

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

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

Lawmakers expect Gov. Jerry Brown to suggest spending more tax dollars on public schools and community colleges while asking for more money to be set aside for a rainy day when he releases his updated budget this week. But with a growing $3 billion surplus, Democrats who control the Legislature will jockey to increase funding for child care, higher education and other social programs. Assembly Speaker Toni Atkins said those areas have suffered spending cuts over the last decade and while lawmakers “know we’re not going to get everything we want,” she and other Democratic leaders “expect good news.”

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by Judy Lin, The Sacramento Bee.

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

Amid a state budget standoff and a growing sense that a UC education is slipping out of reach for Californians, the University of California won’t reveal its admission rates until next month — an unusual delay that may reflect a startling number of rejections and wait-list notices high-schoolers have already received. Observers say UC could be withholding record-low admission rates to avoid further inflaming tensions as UC President Janet Napolitano tries to break a funding stalemate with Gov. Jerry Brown and lawmakers quick to accuse the university of shutting out their constituents. Last year, admission rates at UC Berkeley, UCLA, UC San Diego and UC Santa Barbara fell to less than half of what they were in the mid-1990s, an analysis by this newspaper showed — and the drop is expected to continue this year, with still more applicants vying for the same number of spots.

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

Posted: April 17th, 2015, by: admin. Categories: . Awaiting Comments.

According to an analysis of census data by the University of California–Berkeley’s Center for Labor Research and Education, 25 percent of “part-time college faculty” and their families now receive some sort public assistance, such as Medicaid, the Children’s Health Insurance Program, food stamps, cash welfare, or the Earned Income Tax Credit… an awful lot of Ph.D.s and master’s degree holders are basically working poor.

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by Jordan Weissmann, Slate.

Posted: April 13th, 2015, by: admin. Categories: . Awaiting Comments.

Paid as little as a couple of thousand dollars for each semester-long course, hundreds of thousands of people with doctorates or multiple master’s degrees are earning near-poverty wages working as adjunct professors… Growing contingency in the ranks of college instructors, says Daniel Maxey, co-director of the Delphi Project on the Changing Faculty and Student Success at the University of Southern California, is a result of “economic changes such as dwindling public resources allocated to fund higher education, rising corporate influence in the way institutions are managed [and] demands of growing enrollments and access to higher education,” among other factors. The fallout of these changes travels beyond adjunct’s own financial stability. Research has shown that the quality of instruction declines as teaching work is shifted from full time to adjunct professors.

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by Seth Freed Wessler, NBC News.

Posted: April 6th, 2015, by: admin. Categories: . Awaiting Comments.

A state senator from San Diego has proposed a plan to put more money into California’s higher education system and perhaps stop a proposed student tuition hike at University of California campuses. Democrat Sen. Marty Block’s Senate Bill 15 will be heard by the Senate Education Committee on April 8. Block is proposing to use money from the general fund to provide $25 million to the University of California and the California State University systems to offer more classes. He wants another $50 million for each system to provide more student support services to ensure students graduate within four years. On top of that, Block is proposing to offer incentives to students who finish in a timely manner. If a student graduates in four years, he or she will be given an incentive grant of $4,000.

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by Megan Burke, Maureen Cavanaugh, Hoa Quach, Amita Sharma, KPBS.

Posted: April 1st, 2015, by: admin. Categories: . Awaiting Comments.

Apollo’s fast fall is another sign of the decline in for-profit education. Last July, one of Apollo’s former competitors, Corinthian Colleges, shuttered its doors. In 2012, the University of Phoenix closed 115 of its campuses. Once a cash cow industry, for-profit education companies have struggled to overcome criticism of the quality of its education and the costs. They’re the sore spot in the national debate about value of higher education. For-profit colleges only enroll roughly 12% of the country’s students, but students at for-profit colleges accounted for about half of student loan defaults in 2013, according to federal data.

Read full article [here].
by Patrick Gillespie, CNN.

Posted: March 25th, 2015, by: admin. Categories: . Awaiting Comments.

Even as arguments continue about proposed tuition increases and limits on state funding, a variety of new proposals are aimed at increasing the capacity — and number — of public universities to enroll more students. UC Merced officials last week pitched to the UC regents a plan to increase its student body to 10,000 from 6,200 over the next five to seven years… UC Berkeley is advocating a major new satellite campus on the underused 130 acres it owns seven miles away on the Richmond waterfront… And state Assemblyman Mike Gatto (D-Glendale) recently attracted attention for proposing a new UC campus, possibly near Silicon Valley or Los Angeles, devoted to technology, science and some arts… Meanwhile, for the Cal State system, Assemblywoman Susan Talamantes Eggman (D-Stockton) in December introduced a bill that would initiate a study of a possible Stockton campus, which would be that system’s 24th school. Elsewhere, hometown civic boosters are advocating for one in Chula Vista, near San Diego.

Read full article [here].
by Larry Gordon, The Los Angeles Times.

Posted: March 25th, 2015, by: admin. Categories: . Awaiting Comments.

California State University administrators made significant gains in hiring and compensation over the last decade while faculty lost ground or failed to keep pace in both areas, according to a report released Tuesday by the California Faculty Assn. The report, “Race to the Bottom: Salary, Staffing Priorities and the CSU’s 1%,” culled CSU payroll and budget data and found that over the last decade, the number of managers and supervisors systemwide grew 19% while the number of tenured and tenure-track faculty fell 3%. The number of permanent faculty was reduced even as the student population increased 24% during that time, according to the report.

Read full article [here].
by Carla Rivera, The Los Angeles Times.

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