All week members of undergraduate student government asked students in Bruin Plaza if they were “DTF”– that is, “Down to Fund.” The efforts were part of a campaign to reform what they claim is a misguided California law, which will in turn free up funds to reverse the hefty tuition hikes that have taken place over the past decade.
But if you ask the experts, they will tell you a different story about the solution that the Undergraduate Students Association Council’s external vice president’s office is touting as a fix for the University of California’s budget woes.
To tout such an unsure solution as a long-term campaign for college affordability is an irresponsible move and a misuse of student fees that support councilmembers and fund UCSA’s Proposition 13 reform campaign.
Hans Johnson, a research fellow at the Public Policy Institute of California, said a reform that would tax corporationswhile leaving homeowners under the current policy, as the UCSA is suggesting, might increase funding for the UC initially, but would still leave the University at risk for budget cuts.
“The budget problems that UC and (California State Universities) have faced might be partly due to Prop 13 but, much more importantly, they are a consequence of (higher education) not being protected in the state budget like other areas of government programs,” Johnson said.
The EVP’s week of action is part of a UC-wide campaign to reform the tax system led by the University of California Student Association. The reform could be a good one for the state – Prop. 13 limits tax revenue that would otherwise fund K-12 schools and community colleges – but USAC’s promised tuition rollbacks are a far cry from reality.
USAC’s Down to Fund events, and the University of California Student Association Fund the UC campaign they support, emphasize a weak connection between tuition increases and local property taxes. But what the resolution sponsors fail to understand, or perhaps acknowledge, and what the students need to know, is that our expensive tuition stems from a different problem.
As experts from the California Legislative Analyst’s Office explained to me last month, the link between the law and the University of California budget is almost nonexistent. The UC receives its funding from the state budget, while Prop. 13 impacts local government budgets.
The one detail that UCSA and the EVP office have anchored their efforts to is that reform might supply the state’s general fund with more money if it no longer needs to invest as much in local governments.
However, those funds are unstable and unpredictable.
The state may or may not continue investing funds in local programs which currently receive money from the state. Potentially increased general funds might lead to more money for higher education, but that money is in no way guaranteed to go to the UC.
Each degree of separation between the funds Prop. 13 reform would generate and the funds going to the UC budget make it less likely that tuition would be affected at all.
“It’s kind of like playing dominos, but the dominos get farther away from each other, so you push one over and hope it hits the next one,” said Patrick Murphy, director of research and senior fellow at the Public Policy Institute of California.
A resolution that USAC EVP Maryssa Hall sponsored but has not brought to the table yet calls Prop. 13 a “primary cause of both California’s structural revenue problem and the inadequate funding of education in the State of California,” but that is not true.
The $6 billion that the resolution claims the reform would generate would account for a tiny fraction of the state’s overall budget, chump change for a pool of funds totaling more than $150 billion.
The EVP and other councilmembers involved in the Prop. 13 awareness week must consider such feedback from multiple experts at two non-partisan organizations and recognize the attempt to fix UC funding through Prop. 13 reform as a poorly prioritized one.
Instead of advocating for Prop. 13 reform, which would not create any lasting fiscal security, a long-term campaign that seeks to create constitutional protections for state higher education budgets would better serve the student body.
These protections might take on the model of Proposition 98, which ties K-12 and community college funding to a formula, promising the UC a minimum portion of the yearly state budge.
These protections would legally bind the state to offering the UC funding while solidifying the state’s support for higher education in its own legislation. The direct approach is more likely to ease our tuition burden in the long run and prevent deep cuts in the future.
Such a change, although difficult, would protect the UC against the kinds of budget cuts that have historically affected the University and caused tuition increases.
Even though Prop. 13 cannot realistically increase funding for the UC, Hall could come back with a revised campaign more in tune with fiscal realities in Sacramento.
If Hall presented Prop. 13 reform in the context of increasing access to the UC by improving K-12 education and community colleges, rather than casting the reform as an issue of UC affordability, then it might be a worthwhile stance for USAC and UCLA students to take.
She could also package this new stance with a push for legislative protections for the UC budget. That campaign would actually get at the heart of the primary cause of inadequate funding for the UC.
Tweet Shepherd at @katemshepherd. Send general comments to opinion@media.ucla.edu or tweet us @DBOpinion.