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University of California Budget Crisis Update

Brian Leiter

The University of California has announced its response to the budget crisis.  The plan includes this information of particular relevance to job seekers:  “UC Berkeley, for example, anticipates reducing faculty recruitment from a typical 100 positions a year to 10. …Moreover, most campuses are deferring at least 50 percent of planned faculty hires.…”

This newspaper account adds additional details:      

The $813 million state funding cut represents about 20 percent of all general state revenue for UC, [UC President] Yudof said.

Yudof's plan for furlough days would be progressive, meaning lower-paid employees would experience a lower percentage of furlough days and lower percent of lost income compared to high wage earners. Here's Yudof's proposal:

$40,000 and under — 11 furlough days — 4 percent of income
$40,001-$46,000 — 13 furlough days — 5 percent of income
$46,001-60,000 — 16 furlough days — 6 percent of income
$60,001-$90,000 — 18 furlough days — 7 percent of income
$90,001-$180,000 — 21 furlough days — 8 percent of income
$180,001-$240,000 — 24 furlough days — 9 percent of income
$240,000 and above — 26 furlough days — 10 percent of income

The one 'advantage' of a furlough as opposed to a salary cut in this context is that, absent further action, salaries remain officially at their current level, and so after one year return to normal–unless, of course, there is another round of 'furloughs.'

Comments from UC faculty about effects of the budget cut on their departments are welcome–also comments from Cal State faculty.  Additional informational links are also welcome.

UPDATE:  A related IHE story here.

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12 responses to “University of California Budget Crisis Update”

  1. Ryan

    Speaking of the budget crisis in the UC system, is anyone familiar with the following story: http://www.mercedsunstar.com/167/story/942002.html?storylink=omni_popular ? It seems as though a number of UC San Diego faculty are suggesting that UC Merced, Riverside, and Santa Cruz be possibly shut down. The link to the full letter is here: http://toodumbtolivearchive.blogspot.com/2009/07/june-15-2009-dear-i-write-on-behalf-of.html . It appears to be signed by the philosophy department chair at UCSD. One would hope that he thought that UC Riverside's philosophy department would qualify as an 'exception' when the letter turns to discuss the quality of UCSC, UCR, and UCM…

    Reply
  2. jonathan weinberg

    It's not at all the main part of the discussion, but (in part as a Rutgers grad) I'm not sure what to make of this, in that letter:

    "Every state system of public education save California manages to sustain (at best) one flagship campus. Many, including such states as New York, New Jersey, and Massachusetts, do not manage even that."

    I can see where it might be somewhat tricky with the SUNY system to pick out flagships, though clearly not all of its campuses are treated as totally equal, and there's also the matter of CUNY and its Graduate Center. But do New Brunswick and Amherst really not count as the flagship campuses of their respective state systems of public education?

    Reply
  3. David Brink

    For the record, I am the UCSD Philosophy Department Chair. I responded to a draft of the letter. I did not commit myself as a signatory. Instead I provided comments on the draft. I agreed with parts of the draft. In particular, I agreed with prioritizing the academic core, raising fees substantially for in-state tuition, and increasing the number of out-of-state students. I also agreed with quantifying UC's contribution to the state economy and driving these numbers home to the Regents and the legislature. Also, I agreed that cuts should not be uniform across campuses and programs but should be targeted in such a way as to best preserve excellence. I specifically dissented on the suggestion that UCR and UCSC should be consigned to the status of teaching institutions citing the existence of several very strong programs at both institutions. This comment led to a very slight moderation of the language of the letter. I should not have been regarded as a signatory to the letter, certainly not to the whole.

    Reply
  4. Matt Brown

    I rather liked George Lakoff's letter to the Regents:

    http://toodumbtolivearchive.blogspot.com/2009/07/lakoff-letter-to-uc-regents-for.html

    Reply
  5. Mark Dondero

    I'm with Jonathan: I don't know what they're getting at with that passage. "Every state system of public education save California…" So does the "state system" include both the UC system and the Cal State system or each individually? If both, then at least Texas (UT and Texas A&M) and Michigan (Michigan and Michigan State) (perhaps Kansas, Colorado, Flordia, and Iowa as well, though I'm not as familiar with those states) serve as clear counterexamples to the "at best". If each individually, then I don't see at all how Rutgers or UMass are counterexamples as New Brunswick and Amherst seem to uncontroversially be the main campuses of their systems.

    I know this is getting very off-topic here, but that proposal seems to contain many extreme claims, and if someone is to argue against the furloughs, stronger evidence would make them much more persuasive. Have there been other alternatives suggested?

    Reply
  6. Christopher Dohna (recent UCSD grad)

    I agree with the sentiments Lakoff expresses about how to ultimately address the UC budget crisis. The crisis is no doubt very serious, and it appears that, at the very least, short term immediate cuts of some degree are necessary. To that end, I agree with much of what David suggests: focusing on the core academic disciplines, increasing awareness of the real value of the current UC education to the state of California, focusing cuts across campuses to preserve excellence (initially I am not opposed to closing the still very new UC Merced), and increasing the number of out-of-state students.

    However, I must strongly disagree with David about raising in-state tuition fees. I have spent the last year working around San Diego County as part of the organization responsible for the vast majority of the academic outreach provided to students, encouraging and assisting the socially underprivileged students in admission to and paying for a quality college education. It is already about maximally difficult without being impossible for many talented students to afford a UC education. As money to assist them in the forms of grants and independent scholarships shrinks, as it certainly is here, the situation is only becoming more dire. Adding to the problem of affordability, and effectively locking out at least some number of qualified and passionate students by the force of economics, takes away from what is one of the key greatnesses of the UC system: a wide range of excellent higher education at a price point that, for the majority of in-state students (those not lucky enough to receive large awards to other universities), is uncontestable elsewhere. The UC model currently provides a much greater opportunity, in terms of the range and number of students served, to great education than any other system of higher education of which I am aware. Substantially raising in-state tuition will result in less access and greater hardship and debt for those that still have access. Maintaining that opportunity for so many students is as much a part of the excellence of UC as is its well known academic excellence.

    So how to make a bigger budget impact, other than what has already been suggested? I suggest the following as further drops in the bucket: cutting recreational activities provided or funded, cutting special events for undergraduates, increasing profit margins on non-essential goods the university sells (so, not on the food undergraduates living on campus have to eat, or the administrative services they require, but pretty much everything else), using less instructional materials that require payment to the publisher/owner in favor of free resources where possible, moving to a paperless administrative system campus-wide, and moving to open-source technology system solutions. None of these things seem essential to educational mission of UC.

    Reply
  7. Jonathan

    Professor Brink's comments above seem very important. How many of the 23 department chairs actually signed the Scull letter? The letter has caused a considerable backlash. If not everyone actually signed it, people should know.

    Reply
  8. Mike Otsuka

    Is there anything wrong with the following proposal?: Devote dwindling California state revenue for higher education exclusively to tuition waivers plus grants and loans for students of relatively modest means, while allowing tuition to rise dramatically to a level that approaches what private universities charge. The University of California would be kept financially afloat by high tuition, some of which would be provided by the state in the form of tuition waivers, and the rest of which would be provided by those who can pay. A consequence of this would be to end the subsidy of the higher education of the children of the upper middle and upper class, which has got to be pretty low down the list of state budget priorities.

    Reply
  9. harry b

    Mike Otsuka's suggestion is the way things are going in most places (if slowly), and I have no objection to it EXCEPT for the fact that high sticker price tuition is known to have significant effects on the willingness of children from low-income families to attend college, because their parents and often their high schools are not aware of the fact that no-one from a low income family (indeed, in the case of elite private schools hardly anyone at all) pays the sticker price. There is a huge information problem here, which is very hard to solve (saying "all middle and high schools should be well informed about the policy" is obvious, but quite unhelpful given the middle and high schools that lower income kids actually attend).

    There is a reason, though, for coastal states to subsidise upper middle class kids education, which is to keep them in-state after they graduate. (Midwestern states have no such reason — they all leave even though we subsidise them, so our subsidy ends up benefiting other states).

    Everything David Brink says seems completely right to me.

    Reply
  10. Mike Otsuka

    Harry,
    I agree with the reason you offer for not raising UC tuition all the way to the level of selective private universities, and that's why I suggested that UC tuitions rise merely to a level that approaches private tuitions. I was also thinking that even if upper middle class students are no longer subsidized by the state, what they would pay to keep the UC's financially afloat at pre-economic-meltdown levels would be lower than private tuitions, given the less costly student/teacher ratio at public universities. (The fact, however, that the cost of teaching students at selective private universities is covered to a greater extent by endowment income than the cost of teaching students at the UC's complicates matters.)

    Reply
  11. Nathan Westbrook

    Here's a link to an article that (among other things) addresses the infamous UCSD letter:

    http://www.sdnn.com/sandiego/2009-07-30/news/politics-city-county-government/how-will-the-university-of-california-survive-the-budget-cuts

    Reply
  12. Michael Lanno

    Recently, the UC Regents rubber stamped a furlough/pay cut for faculty and staff. Only Lt. Gov. John Garamendi voted against it. Unless the Regents and elected officials come up with new ways for the state to support higher education, the UC system will continue its decline. The Cal State campuses will follow close behind. Who will be the real losers in all of this?-the hopes and dreams of generations of future working and middle class California students.

    Reply

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