SAN FRANCISCO — The second day of the UC Board of Regents’ three-day meeting was dominated by discussions about how proposed strategies to combat the university’s budget shortfall would affect the ethnic diversity of its student body, quality of education and financial affordability for low- and middle-income students.
Much of the debate at Wednesday’s meeting centered around the possibility of increasing tuition to increase the percentage of students supported by the UC Blue and Gold Opportunity Plan, which uses one-third of the revenue from undergraduate fee increases as a return-to-aid policy to pay for the tuition of low-income students.
UC Executive Vice President for Business Operations Nathan Brostrom said that by increasing tuition by $2,000, the plan could support families making $120,000 a year, up from the $80,000 annual income limit it currently supports.
“The problem with having the perception that low-income students are taken care of is a false impression,” said Cinthia Flores, the student regent-designate, in an interview. “As we’ve seen, Cal Grants are constantly on the chopping blocks. In reality, low-income students depend on the wish and want of the state Legislature.
With state funding reduced by 27 percent since the 2008-09 fiscal year and individual campuses still absorbing a portion of $750 million in budget cuts from last year, administrators cautioned against the notion that the board will not have to consider tuition increases at all. If voters fail to pass Proposition 30, Gov. Jerry Brown’s tax initiative, at the statewide elections on Nov. 6, the board will likely approve midyear tuition increases at their meeting later that month to partly make up for $250 million in midyear “trigger” cuts.
“We learned of the budget situation at the end of June,” Brostrom said in an interview. “It’s a lot of revenue to make up in a short time.”
Since the board approved Brown’s UC budget proposal at their meeting July, hinging the short-term financial stability of university on the proposition, the university has explored financial options to raise revenue without increasing student fees. The university will begin restructuring its revenue, investments and endowment accounts, which could generate $20 million in one-time funds, Brostrom said at the meeting. Restructuring the university’s debt could generate an additional $80 million to $100 million in savings, according to Brostrom.
UC administrators said that if the tax initiative fails to pass at the polls, restructuring financial assets would help prevent the full 20.3 percent tuition increase that would be necessary to make up for trigger cuts.
“We want to know what our options are should the initiative pass and, God forbid, if it doesn’t,” said board chair Sherry Lansing. “We’d like to know we’ve done anything humanly possible (before voting) for tuition increases.”
Should the proposition pass, students will be off the hook for a tuition increase this school year but will likely face a 6 percent tuition increase for the 2013-14 academic year, according to UC Vice President for Budget and Capital Resources Patrick Lenz.
Earlier in the meeting, the board debated raising the percentage of the nonresidents in undergraduate student body, which is currently capped at 10 percent systemwide. Some regents, including William De La Pena, supported the idea, saying increasing nonresident enrollment is necessary for the university to remain economically viable.
Yet, others worried that raising the cap would further decrease the representation of underrepresented minorities at the university, a large portion of whom are California residents.
“We are changing fundamentally our mission, which is to provide education to Californians,” said Regent Eddie Island at the meeting. “Now, we are selling it to the highest bidder.”
Staff writer Sara Khan contributed to this report.
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Adopting free-market ideology with the help of Nathan Brostrom, Sherry Lansing and Richard Blum
Wonderful return-to-aid. One third of our tuition is used to pay for low income students. So we get a tuition bump to help pay for other students to go to Cal. So instead of going to the much larger tax base to take a little from everyone to pay for this, they take a huge amount from each student to pay for this. And now low income includes families making over $100K a year. Sometimes I hate politicians and bureaucrats, but only 90% of the time.
I wouldn’t be so bothered about helping low-income students if we were concentrating on truly qualified prospects who could earn a degree in some marketable major, go out in the workforce, and make enough money to not only pay back student loans, but make a commensurate contribution to the state income tax base. That type of expenditure is genuinely an investment in the future. What is NOT an “investment” is dumbing down standards in the name of AA/diversity, then channeling these marginal prospects into various and sundry basket-weaving and race/ethnic/gender “studies” programs that offer no marketable skills and leave these individuals with nothing other than a worthless degree and a mountain of student debt that eventually has to be assumed by the taxpayers.