The University of California may raise tuition once again after three years of managing to keep it flat while facing lower state funding. But students shouldn’t get mad at the UC: We need the money, and it’s the state that’s to blame.
Under a proposal that UC President Janet Napolitano unveiled Wednesday, if the state does not give the UC more funding than it has already promised for one year, the UC could raise tuition and fees by up to 5 percent for each of those five years.
While the idea of tuition increases itself may seem unpleasant, this announcement only reinforces what this board has said again and again – the state needs to reinvest in and show a stronger financial commitment to the University.
The state promised the UC 4 percent funding increases for the next two years under the condition that tuition be frozen during that time. But 4 percent – which UC officials said would increase the UC’s core education budget by just 1.7 percent – doesn’t even cover the cost of inflation. The state needs to remember that the UC is saddled with hundreds of millions in additional growing costs, like deferred maintenance projects and pension, that are largely out of its control and for which state support has been dismal or nonexistent.
State funding as is cannot sustain the University, so the proposal makes future tuition increases as predictable and moderate as possible. Students would not have to face sudden and steep increases like the 17.6 percent hike in 2011.
Napolitano’s proposal is a bold and risky move, betting the University’s funding pact against the odds that the state will funnel more money to the UC. But passively asking the state for money and hoping Gov. Jerry Brown will listen has not resulted in more money in the past, nor will it now. Brown cannot and should not ignore such a move, especially when it comes from a high-profile official like Napolitano, who has decades of experience in playing the political game.
While this board agrees that this proposal is necessary, we also acknowledge that the UC should have done a better job in communicating with students and legislators prior to the proposal’s announcement just two weeks before the UC Board of Regents will vote on it. Several student leaders said they were completely ignorant of this proposal, and they should have been included in the conversation leading up to the policy’s creation.
But Napolitano’s proposal is still the best plan for giving students advance notice for tuition increases, which are likely inevitable unless legislators take it upon themselves to protect the public nature of the UC. State funding to the UC remains at more than $450 million below the levels that existed before the recession, and yet the UC expects $390 million in cost increases alone for next year, in addition to supporting a University system that has expanded substantially in size.
Considering the UC’s dire financial situation and the lack of real concern from the state, Napolitano’s plan is the best way to both actively press the state for more money and make tuition increases as fair as possible.
This editorial is wrong. Students are the last recipients that benefit from UC funding. Janet Napolitano and the Treasurer of the UC each make over $900,000 while the President of the United States makes $400,000. The Chancellor of the Community College System, who manages a system comprises of over 2,300,000 students makes less than $250,000. The Editorial Board need to question the prioritization of UC salaries over students, financial investments and bonds, and whether UC is an educational institution or a private business.
The comparison to US Presidents is silly. Former US Presidents have a lifetime income guarantee (including a healthy pension), but UC Presidents do not. (e.g., CNN: “In 11 years as a private citizen, Clinton has delivered 471 paid speeches and earned an average of $189,000 per event.”)
The University of California has a budget of over 20 billion dollars, educates a quarter of a million students, and employs over 200,000 people. One cannot manage this institution with the skills of a mid-level manager at a startup. Anyone with the experience required to manage this institution would make far more money in any other area. So the compensation is required in order to hire someone with enough competence to do the job.
The Daily Bruin’s editors have correctly identified the problem and the solution.
Your figures mean nothing when the community college system educations almost 2.5 million students. The bottom line is that the University of California is an education, not a business. The sheer size of UC salaries cannot be justified when the UC is not a Wall Street company. The UC also has a history of questionable financial investments and fiscal allocations. Please do your research before defending the Editorial Board/Regents.
There is a reason why UC schools do well in university rankings. This result cannot be achieved by hiring people with ordinary skills and average performance. It can only happen with top performers who are highly skilled. And there is a price to pay to hire such folks. Is it worth the tuition dollars? Consumers can decide. They can choose to go to a community college if they want.
If you think the reason these schools provide a good education for students is because of somebody with a business degree my response is that you must be a paid management stooge. I was part of system wide bargaining. Managers don’t even know and don’t care about what the levels of class sizes are. The quality of undergraduate education is not at all a priority for campus level or statewide management. Their main priority is selling degrees to the highest amount of people for the maximum cost, and they are happy to facilitate future loans so you can continue to pay the Regents and their Wall Street peers back indefinitely. Any kind of teaching or professional development programs that exist to improve the quality of education are both rare and hard fought for in the UC, things that pit faculty and grad students against management. You are lucky if any of your TAs or professors have ever taken or been provided with formal pedagogy classes. The fact that the education is ranked highly is the result of the sweat and sacrifice of teachers. How dare you give these interlopers from finance and law enforcement credit.