State Treasurer Phil Angelides, D announced a proposal this week
to create a hefty endowment for state higher education, but it
remains unclear what impact, if any, it will have on the University
of California.
Angelides called for the creation of a $5 billion endowment,
called the California Hope Endowment, to fund scholarships,
financial aid, college preparatory courses and other programs to
increase student access to California colleges and
universities.
The endowment would be funded through better management of
state-owned real estate.
“Property doesn’t need to be sold off, it needs to
be better managed,” said Mitchel Benson, a spokesman for
Angelides.
Benson said there is mismanaged real estate throughout
California that could be developed and expanded for considerable
profit, which could then be used to the benefit of state higher
education.
The prospect of additional funding for higher education ““
especially in light of recent severe budget cuts to California
colleges and universities ““ has met with some support from
lawmakers around the state, though many are waiting for the
official proposal from the treasurer before making final judgments
on the endowment.
Gabriel Sanchez, a spokesman for Assembly Speaker Fabian
Núñez, D-Los Angeles, said increasing funding for state
higher education is “a worthy goal,” but
Núñez would not endorse or reject the bill until after it
has been brought forth to the legislature.
“The speaker’s fought very hard to improve access to
higher education for Californians,” Sanchez said. “We
eagerly await seeing the details of the treasurer’s
plan.”
Sanchez said the treasurer will likely propose his bill Dec. 6,
because that is when the 2005-2006 legislative session
convenes.
Additionally, the UC is holding off judgment until more
information is released.
The UC Office of the President released a statement saying,
“The university supports the goals of increasing student
financial assistance and expanding state funding for higher
education, but we have not had an opportunity to examine the
treasurer’s recent proposal in detail.”
Likewise, Steve Olsen, the UCLA vice chancellor of finance and
budget, said of the proposed endowment: “It’s not clear
whether or not the UC would participate in it.”
The prospect of the endowment has raised some eyebrows among
those who believe it could conflict with one of the propositions on
the Nov. 2 ballot.
Proposition 60a would use the funds from the sale of
California’s surplus properties to pay off some of the
state’s existing bonds.
But Benson said there was no conflict between the proposition
and the endowment. The belief that there was a conflict, he said,
stemmed from a misunderstanding in early reports of the
proposal.
“We’re not necessarily talking about surplus
property,” he said. “The treasurer is talking about a
much larger source of real estate.”
“We don’t see any inherent conflict between surplus
property and what the treasurer is proposing,” he added.
Rather than selling surplus property, Benson said the state
would take its property and develop it so as to have more
efficiently managed and lucrative real estate. “The revenues
from that … would then be funneled” into higher education,
he said.
If approved, it would be the seventh-largest higher education
endowment in the United States.