From today's Chronicle comes the news of an unprecedented round of fee hikes that, as the article notes, will likely deny access to the University of California system for a large segment of middle and lower-income students in California. That the UC is facing a budget deficit (mirroring one for the State of California as a whole, and exacerbated by the statewide shortage) is not news; that both UC Executives and Regents will be keeping their exorbitant salaries in place while pricing out 10 public universities is a more recent development and one that makes my blood boil. I'm safe - having bid farewell to UCLA 4 years ago - but I cringe when thinking of the future of what was once the most robust and vibrant public university network in the country.
Weigh in: what are the alternatives to successive rounds of 15% fee hikes? Are there any alternatives? Is this just the state of business in a cash-strapped state?
ReplyDeleteMy first inclination is that there must be some unncessary expenses that we can trim. In my time there I know a lot of the local high school/ elementary school outreach programs were cut from UCLA, and that upset a lot of people. Another great example: UCLA should have charged double for Intramurals. I even wrote a letter to the UCLA board asking them to do so. We charged $30 per team per quarter and the second cheapest school I could find in my 'market study' was $50 per team. What did UCLA do? They raised the fee to only $40 and then REDUCED the number of teams that could join Intramurals... makes sense if you're saving more money on staffing than you're getting from entry fees, but I have no confidence this was a savvy business move on UCLA's part.
ReplyDeleteAnyway that's one small example... the other option is I guess to not cut funding and take it from another state program, but that seems unlikely.
My question is this - why doesn't the state have a concrete plan for what % of funding it wants to give to the UC, and what % of school costs should be covered by students? Why is this a willy-nilly tuition number that explodes every year? It just makes no sense to me
I just realized it sounds like I'm suggesting higher IM fees could save the UCs... obviously that sounds dumb. My point was that in one small area of the school that I was familiar with, UCLA was making a bad decision based on the economics of a situation. So my thinking is that they must have been making all kinds of similar bad decisions up and down the expenses ledger of the school and the whole UC system. Does that make sense?
ReplyDeleteMakes total sense, I read your take as part of a larger picture. And, to an extent, I think you're right - in the same way that digitizing medical records is a HUGE first step to reining in and keeping down health care costs. What baffles me is that the UC - a state-run institution like anything else - doesn't get treated with the same kid gloves as other big state-funded programs: worker pensions, prisons, even the apparatus of the state government itself. In tough times, there are certain "golden geese" (did I just make that up?) that don't get touched, and yet the UC System doesn't get the same quarter as the things I listed above. That's OK, though, since there aren't any studies showing that education is the key to advancement in life & work.
ReplyDeleteI think if the Regents were to go out to UC students and say, "Look ,we're X dollars short. We are doing A, B, and C to lower costs, but we need to hike fees Y amount to help out. This is the only time we're doing this, and we think it will work" then people would be less upset. It certainly wouldn't put us in the ridiculous situation where the Alumni Association is begging ME for money because UC funding got slashed. Hello? I'm still paying for college - through LOANS.
Spend less on prisons; it'll suck in the short term since the reward for the $ we spend on education won't be seen for another 5-10 years, but it'll only help in the long run: 1 step back for 2 steps forward type deal.
ReplyDeletePS This is the only data I could find relatively quickly, and it only goes up to 2001, but even then the growth in costs for prison were higher than for education.
ReplyDeleteWhen I get a chance, I'll through the US Census data to get CA's growth rates for education and prison...
Nope, I was wrong: According to data from the US Census Bureau, from the 95/96 fiscal year to the 05/06 fiscal year California's total expenditures have increased by 98.8%, while its education expenditures have grown 85.9% and its prison expenditures have increased only 74.0%.
ReplyDeleteI'm shot - thought for sure prison costs would have out paced education costs.
Scott that's a great resource. Have you already thrown all that in a spreadsheet? If not I may do so and check it out... what's increasing by more than higher education and prisons, to make our overall budget double in expenses?
ReplyDeleteI only looked at total, education, and prison expenses - don't recall what has more than doubled over the past decade.
ReplyDeleteNor, have I checked to see how CA compares to other states, nor the nation as a whole.
ReplyDeleteI want you all to put this increase in context. When I create a financial plan, I always assume a 5% inflation for education expenses. 5% over 18 years adds up to a lot. So don't think to compare a 15% increase to 0 or even a normal 3% inflation.
ReplyDeleteSo while this can seem outrageous given no historical context, it is high but not necessarily extravagant.
According to the article, 1/3 of tuition is still being set aside for financial aid and while it does not mention compensation for top officials, is does address the fact that state support is less, while costs are always increasing.
I feel very neutral about this article and would say that this is a necessary action.
I'd also be willing to bet that all the UC's continue to see an increase in the number of applications and that as a whole, the high school students of California will not be deterred from taking advantage of the best university system in the world.