While legislative analyst Elizabeth Hill’s alternative to
Gov. Gray Davis’ budget plan reduces proposed increases in
student fees, it falls short of actually fixing the problems budget
cuts pose to the quality of education.

As opposed to Davis’ plan, which calls for a 25 percent
increase in student fees for both graduate and undergraduate
residents, Hill’s plan raises fees by only 10 percent for
undergraduates and by 20 percent for graduate students. The problem
with Hill’s proposal is that it also cuts financial aid given
to students from working class and poor families by $59 million
dollars, aid which would go toward paying for fee increases.
Davis’ current plan converts about a third of the funds
accumulated by fee increases into financial aid for needy students.
Only a tenth of the funds would serve this purpose under
Hill’s plan.

The Legislative Analyst’s Office’s plan would
produce more revenue for the UC ““ about $24 million more from
fees alone ““ but it fails to realize the impact it will have
on individuals who will face higher financial burdens.

The trouble with the LAO’s budget proposals is that
it’s efficiency oriented, not academically minded.

The LAO’s method of fiscally dealing with UC enrollment
growth faces this same problem. Whereas Davis proposes a 6.9
percent increase in the budget to account for enrollment growth,
the LAO plan brings the figure down by almost 3 percent, to only a
4 percent increase. The LAO expects the lower funding to be
cushioned by higher faculty-to-student ratios, which is a
problem.

UCLA, specifically, already faces serious overcrowding issues
and high faculty-to-student ratios. Increasing these even more
might be financially reasonable, but it also perpetuates the
erosion of the university’s quality of education. More
students will be packed into less classes, and the amount of
attention professors can dedicate to individual students will
continue to become diluted among ever-increasing bodies.

One good aspect of the LAO budget is its strategically
reassigning budget cuts to outreach. Davis proposed cutting the
outreach budget by 50 percent. The LAO proposes cuts in the same
amount, but to programs which seek to recruit students who are
already UC-eligible, rather than those that work to actually make
students UC-eligible. Cuts to outreach are not desirable, but the
LAO plan calls on the UC to pinpoint areas where outreach is needed
most ““ an exception to the otherwise academically unfriendly
LAO budget proposals.

From a broader perspective, neither the LAO or Davis plan grant
education the high priority it deserves. Education should be last
on the list of things to cut. Davis has not placed it there even
though he has spent millions on raising prison guards’
salaries and expanding death row. If Davis rerouted the money
he’s spending on beefing up death row to the UC, about 73
percent of the university’s budget deficit would be
eliminated.

The always present, but never popular option is to raise taxes
in the upper brackets. Currently, the governor is raising taxes by
$1 for approximately every $2 he makes in cuts. His predecessor,
Pete Wilson, evened out his budget cuts with tax increases ““
he raised taxes by $1 for every $1 he cut ““ and he was a
Republican. If the governor would only lose his fear of tainting
his middle-of-the-road image, maybe the UC wouldn’t have to
deal with his or the LAO’s poorly prioritized budget
plans.