As the UC Board of Regents comes out of its secret hideaway in
San Francisco to visit the UCLA campus this week for its bi-monthly
meeting, a controversial new round of potential UC fee hikes are
being brought out into the open.
With the specter of the ruinous California state budget crisis
still looming over their shoulders, it seems as if the regents have
their backs against the wall.
All they were able to do Wednesday was pass a statement of
principles, with UC President Robert Dynes saying, “We
believe in quality for the UC, access and low cost,” but not
promising to avoid fee hikes or program cuts.
But raising fees, cutting programs and enacting enrollment caps
are not options. These defeat the whole purpose of having a public
university system: access. If any of these policies are enacted
when the regents finally decide on a course of action, they may as
well change the dictum on their seal from “let there be
light” to “let there be a little light.” There
are many other options that the regents can and must explore when
coming up with solutions to the huge funding gap. More importantly,
however, the state government, lead by Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger,
should not place UC funding on the chopping block.
The recent 30 percent UC fee hike and the 40 percent increase
currently under discussion are not just the results of the budget
crisis. They are products of a more pervasive attitude of apathy
and disrespect toward the importance of public higher education
institutions.
One of the most common responses I’ve heard from people
when discussing the UC fee hike with them is, yeah, the fee hike
stinks, but UCLA’s still a bargain. Excellence must not be
taken for granted. This is exactly the attitude that will lead to
the ruin of one of the best public university systems in the
nation. Also, for many students who do not qualify for financial
aid, the UC is not a “bargain.” Many of these students
have to take on long hours at jobs, student loans, and sometimes
are forced to use credit cards to meet their UC payments.
Every time fees are raised, access is further restricted. On
average, the burden of funding the system is wrongly being placed
more and more on the shoulders of the students. In the 1985-1986
school year, fees made up 11 percent of a student’s
educational budget. Today, it is 25 percent.
With this kind of funding allocation, the UC shouldn’t be
called a public university, because the public isn’t even
footing the bill anymore. The state government must be held
responsible, especially considering that the UC system has
sustained budget cuts of 14 percent over the past three years,
before we even had a major budget crisis. This is not a trend that
can be allowed to slowly continue, unless we want our public
universities to turn into elitist institutions such as Stanford and
USC.
Cutting UC programs and services are also not options because it
would decrease the quality of education offered by the UC. Laying
off workers and decreasing salaries will discourage quality
instructors from applying for jobs here, as they will be required
to work harder for less pay than at other institutions. It will
make the UC less competitive with other universities and the
quality of teaching, grading and research at the UC will go down.
The UC will also become less attractive to quality high school
seniors, who will look elsewhere when applying to colleges.
Finally, enrollment caps are not an option because they would
cut off access to tens of thousands of future UC students. The
purpose of the UC is to provide a quality education to all
deserving California high school students, not just a select few.
The state government and the regents must change their mindset on
the access issue. The acquisition of a university degree has become
the standard that is critical to individual success in the
professional world.
A high school or junior college degree is no longer enough. But
if the regents cut off access with enrollment caps, then they will
be forcing students who can’t afford private universities
into settling for just that. Enrollment caps for the UC could make
high school the end of the education road for many California
teenagers.
True, a sizeable budget deficit still remains, and it is very
likely that Schwarzenegger will slap the UC with another
significant funding cut when he releases his preliminary budget
proposal next January. As he has only made guarantees towards K-12
education funding, the regents are expecting a significant cut.
But it is unacceptable if the governor wants to pass tax breaks
for businesses to attract more Wal-Marts and McDonald’s into
our communities while forcing California college students and
employees to bear the brunt of the budget crisis. In the words of
Regent Richard Blum, “At some point, this board is going to
have to draw a line in the sand and say, “˜We are not going to
ruin this institution because the state doesn’t want to pay
for it.'”
In the meantime, the regents must consider alternative solutions
to dealing with the likely funding cut. Aggressively seeking
desperately-needed private donations from rich individuals and
corporations, cutting non-instructional programs and raising fees
for out-of-state students are a few ideas.
If a fee hike is needed, then it should be a progressive fee
hike based upon family income to alleviate the impact on
lower-income students who don’t receive financial aid. The
regents also need to come out more often from their hideaway in San
Francisco that is far from the majority of UC campuses in southern
California. Hiding from most UC students has cut us off from giving
feedback to the regents and has made them less responsive to the
UC’s needs.
But these are still all stopgap measures. What is really needed
is a mindset change at the state level. The state must realize that
K-12 education is not enough anymore and that keeping up the
quality of the UC is critical to preparing California’s youth
for success in the working world.
Bitondo is a second-year political science student.