A group of former University of California chancellors suggest raising tuition to about $24,000 for in-state students and increasing the number of out-of-state and international students in a report sent to UC President Mark Yudof Aug. 4 and made public in October.
In late June, former chancellors Richard Atkinson and Charles Young assembled 20 other former UC chancellors to discuss the university system’s future and reach a consensus on how to maintain the current quality of the UC system in response to the increasing budget cuts and rising tuition, said Karl Pister, former chancellor of UC Santa Cruz.
Yudof attended the second day of the three-day meeting to speak with the chancellors for an hour and a half. He explained the current pressures facing the university system and discussed what could and could not be done under the current circumstances, according to Robert Dynes, former UC president and chancellor emeritus of UC San Diego.
Yudof agreed with the points the chancellors made, but he made no comment on whether or not he will accept or recommend any of the points made, according to Pister.
Yudof thanked the former chancellors for bringing a very special perspective and understanding to the issues that the University of California is facing, according to UC spokesperson Steve Montiel.
However, Montiel added in an email that there was no connection between the letter from the former chancellors and ongoing work on obtaining multiyear funding commitments from the state, which was discussed at the September UC Board of Regents’ meeting.
“We’re not laying out a road map,” Dynes said. “We hope to give the current president some advice.”
With deep state funding cuts, the board is looking at all sorts of ideas, Montiel said. The university is trying to address a $2.5 billion funding gap that it will be facing in the next few years.
“There are really no alternatives — either the state puts more money in, which they aren’t doing right now, or the consumers, the students, have to put more money in,” Pister said.
The UC Regents approve tuition increases as a reaction to decreasing state funding for higher education, which is not a stable system for the future, according to the chancellors’ report. Decreased state funding is leading to students having to pay more while eroding student services.
Former UCLA Chancellor Albert Carnesale said he was concerned five years ago about public universities’ competition with private institutions, and he is still concerned now.
The plan suggested that the university needed to become more “self-sufficient” by becoming increasingly privatized. The plan states that UC graduate professional schools are the most likely candidates for a move to financial independence if the “current level of excellence” is to be maintained.
However, the most important aspect the chancellors felt was necessary to maintain the quality of the UC system was the faculty.
“If you can’t keep the faculty we have, the whole thing would collapse,” Pister said. “That puts a tremendous effort on resources to keep the faculty.”
The next Regents meeting is scheduled for Nov. 15-17, and the Regents may act on a budget at this meeting, Montiel said.
“The next step is for the Regents to take some action,” Pister said.
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How come it costs 50% more (after adjusting for inflation)
for University of California Board of Regents Chair Lansing and President Yudof
to provide the same service?
Total expenditures in the UC system in 1999-2000 were $3.2
billion to educate a student population of 154,000. Converted into 2011 dollars
using the Bureau of Labor Statistics CPI calculator gets us to $4.3B in 2011
dollars, which comes out to $27,850 per student.
In 2011, the total UC system budget was $6.3 billion
dollars: an increase of almost 50% after adjusting for inflation. Enrollment
also rose – to 158,000 students, a 3% increase, yielding a cost per student of
$39,750.
Costs went up 50% in
10 years. And yet the news out of UC
President Yudof is that the UC system is “bracing” for ‘another round
of budget cuts’!
Email opinions to UC Board of Regents [email protected]
How much did these Chancellors make and what is their pension? Please follow-up with some investigative reporting. The answer will make us all sick I think.
This is all public information:
http://www.universityofcalifornia.edu/news/compensation/2010-comp-report-smg-arec.pdf
The chancellors know that not everyone will be paying more for tuition. The low income students are subsidized by wealthy students. The wealthy students spend more on Spring Break vacations than the annual tuition so they don’t care. But middle class students will feel the pain and may actually find private schools to be cheaper than U.C.
You would have to be incredibly stupid to take advice from the very persons who have created the current crisis in CA higher ed.
A $1billion/year “disappears” at UCOP for 5 years straight, Yudof acts like he has no idea where it goes, and that his ignorance is also not to be viewed as a problem.
So why would you take him seriously when he calls for tuition hikes, or anything else?
Just Google J Michael Bishop and you can learn all about the hundreds of millions in missing grant money at UCSF, and UC’s repeated lying about it to the press and state legislature.
What a joke the former chancellors are.
“Just Google J Michael Bishop”
I did. It all seemed pretty laudatory. Are you delusional?
“Yudof acts like he has no idea where it goes”
Why would somebody stealing a billion bucks tell Yudof about it? By the way, do you mean a billion or hundreds of millions? Can’t keep your numbers straight?
support ripping off all students equally—take part in UCMeP’s Equality Bake Sale
http://ucmep.wordpress.com/2011/10/06/equality-bake-sale/
Whats the point of quality if it’s unaffordable? Why is the option of reducing quality never brought up as an option?
Because mediocrity isn’t worth paying for at all.
As long as Cal kiddies line up to attend UCB, keep increasing tuition/fees. Let them major in race,ethnic, gender studies then watch as they join the line of unemployed.
Does this comment provide any help, or are you just snide?