It would be the equivalent of increasing University of
California student fees $4,000 per year or removing the freshman
class from each of the system’s campuses.
This simile is how UC Budget Vice President Larry Hershman
explained the severity of a possible $600 million UC budget cut. If
enacted, officials said the cuts would be more damaging than the
$410 million cut suffered this year.
Reduced funding for 2003-2004 has already stalled faculty salary
increases, ballooned student fees 30 percent ““ $1,150
annually ““ and jeopardized the university’s ability to
provide access to all qualified students.
But despite dramatic cuts to every state institution, the state
is still faced with a $7.9 billion deficit next year. In preparing
for possible additional program cuts, the Department of Finance has
asked all state institutions, including the UC, to investigate how
they could sustain a 20 percent cut.
The letter advocated that state institutions consider
cannibalizing some of their programs to preserve others because the
state’s financial problems have left funding for only
“the most critical and essential functions.”
How the UC would survive a cut of around $600 million was
discussed at last week’s UC Regents meeting.
“The regents are taking an all-options-on-the-table look
at the situation,” said Hanan Eisenman, a spokesman for the
UC Office of the President.
The regents’ options include cutting programs, increasing
student fees or curbing enrollment growth, all of which would add
more problems for the university.
This year’s budget cuts dramatically reduced funding for
UC programs. Program funding was slashed across the board,
including a 50 percent cut to outreach. Research has also been
reduced by 20 percent over the past two years.
“You can’t keep cutting things at 10 percent per
year and have a stable program,” said Roberto Peccei, UCLA
vice chancellor of research, in an interview last month.
Though the physical and life sciences are able to obtain
significant federal and private research grants, North Campus
departments, like the American Indian Studies Center and Asian
American Studies Center, depend on state funding and have been
crippled by recent budgets.
The UC also has fallen behind its comparison universities in
faculty salary compensation by 9 percent. It could fall
further.
“We could be down as much as 12 or more percent next year.
I think the worry is that we could get so far behind that we will
never catch up,” Hershman said at the regents meeting.
If the UC cannot remain competitive in its faculty salaries, it
will not remain a top-tier institution, Hershman added.
Budget cuts are particularly troublesome for the university
because of an unanticipated high rate of enrollment growth.
In 1999, the UC was expected to grow by 60,000 students over a
10-year period, but so far the UC has grown by 10,000 more students
than projected. The UC is dependent on budget increases to handle
enrollment growth, but instead the state has reduced the
university’s funding over the past two years.
Between now and January, when the governor gives his budget
proposal for next year, Eisenman said the UC would try to hold up
its obligation to the Master Plan for Higher Education, an
agreement with the state guaranteeing admission to the top 12.5
percent of the state’s high school graduates.
However, after this year’s budget cuts, the regents have
been considering withdrawing from this agreement. A recent UC
budget letter said further funding cuts would make enrollment caps
increasingly necessary.
The state is decreasing its support of a pact it made with the
UC in 1998, the Partnership Agreement, which guarantees the UC
adequate funding to keep access open to all qualified students,
maintain academic quality, and keep faculty salaries competitive.
This year the UC received about 30 percent, or $1.1 billion, less
than university officials said it deserves from the
partnership.
Whether the UC will suffer further budget cuts is up to the
state and won’t be clear until January.
“It all comes down to what the goals of the state
are,” said Will Doyle, a senior policy analyst at the
National Center for Public Policy and Higher Education.
“Does the state want to continue to provide opportunity
for higher education?” he asked. “We are already seeing
some indicators that that goal for opportunity might be
threatened.”