New plan has UC facing dramatic cuts

Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger’s budget proposal for 2004-05,
released Friday, would make severe cuts to the University of
California, including a dramatic slash in enrollment.

The governor’s budget would not fund any enrollment growth
for the UC or the California State University system. The UC
estimates that 5,000 new students would enroll in 2004-05 if
enrollment growth were funded.

But Schwarzenegger’s budget proposal goes beyond capping
enrollment. It also suggests a 10 percent enrollment cut, which
would result in approximately 3,200 fewer students being admitted
to the UC than were admitted this year.

“If freshman enrollments are cut, we may be turning away
some students who have met our eligibility,” said Hanan
Eisenman, a spokesman for the UC Office of the President.

“That is a very distressing prospect, because those
students have worked hard to be eligible for a UC,” Eisenman
added.

The governor’s proposal suggests encouraging the estimated
3,200 students to spend their first two years at community
colleges, where they would pay no fees and have special UC
counselors to help them transfer.

The proposal allocates $125.1 million dollars to allow for a 3
percent increase in community college enrollment.

Schwarzenegger’s budget would also increase fees for
undergraduates by 10 percent and graduate student fees by 40
percent.

In addition, state support for the UC would be scaled back,
forcing it to be more self-sufficient.

State subsidies enable the UC to keep in-state tuition low
compared to private schools, so the proposed cuts would require
programs to be slashed in addition to fee increases.

Undergraduate fees would increase by $498, graduate fees by
$2,088, out-of-state tuition by $2,744, and fees for medical, law
and business students would go up by “roughly” $5,000,
according to a Jan. 9 press release from UCOP.

In addition, all state funding for outreach and the Institute
for Labor and Employment would be eliminated by mid-year cuts.

However, UC officials have maintained the cuts would not be made
until the budget is finalized in the summer.

The budget allocates a one-time fund of $10 million to help UC
Merced open in 2005, but this is only half of what was requested,
said Patti Istas, a spokeswoman for the school.

“With $20 million, our plan was to serve 1,000 students
with 60 faculty,” Istas said.

These numbers had already been pared down from previous goals as
a result of past cuts, and the new reduction will force UC Merced
to reevaluate its programs once again.

“But we’re opening, and that’s great,”
Istas said.

The UC is one of the institutions hardest hit by the budget cuts
because most of California’s budget is locked up in mandatory
spending.

About 20 percent of California’s budget may be spent at
the discretion of the state, said Susanne Lohmann, a professor of
political science at UCLA and director of UCLA’s Center for
Governance.

Because the UC’s budget is a large portion of
California’s discretionary budget, “it is absolutely
inevitable that higher education will have deep cuts,”
Lohmann said.

The problem of certain institutions bearing the brunt of cuts
because of mandatory spending requirements helps explain why many
of the UC’s cuts have focused on outreach and new programs.
Like California’s budget, the majority of the UC’s
budget is tied up in mandated spending that cannot be cut, such as
the salaries of tenured faculty.

“A large part of the budget is fixed, so once again the
cuts have to come from the discretionary,” Lohmann said.
“So, even a small cut from state budget can have quite a
large effect on the discretionary parts.”

“The discretionary budget is where all the action
is,” she added.

In addition to outreach and financial aid, the UC’s
discretionary budget includes things like research and new
programs.

Lohmann used her own research project as an example of how cuts
in funding can effect the “vibrancy” and prestige of a
university.

As a part of a project on “human complex systems,”
Lohmann has been studying the social ramifications of virtual
societies in multiplayer computer games like
“Everquest.”

These “game studies,” which Lohmann said are on the
cutting edge of research, originated at UCLA, but private
universities like USC may move ahead in the field because they have
the funding UCLA lacks.

Schwarzenegger’s proposal would cut a total of $372
million from the UC, but nothing will go into effect until the
budget is approved by the Legislature.

“The first thing to realize is that the governor’s
budget is the first step in the budget process. … It is an
important step, but the final decision is five to six months in the
future,” said Steve Olsen, UCLA vice chancellor of budget and
finance.

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