Pay no attention to the funding crisis behind the curtain.
That’s the message California lawmakers are trying to send by relentlessly criticizing the University of California Office of the President for allegedly mishandling funds.
In the wake of a report released earlier this month by the Huron Consulting Group, UCOP may cut its budget in half. The report was spurred by pressure from state lawmakers purportedly concerned about the office’s budgetary missteps.
Those missteps provided legislators with an opportunity to distract Californians from more pressing issues. After a state audit disclosed last year that UCOP had used byzantine budgeting practices to hang on to $175 million in funding, state lawmakers immediately called for cuts to the office’s budget. In addition, lawmakers have kept up a steady drumbeat of criticism, maligning UCOP for its financial mishaps and an attempt to meddle with the audit. But amid this political brouhaha, proposals to fund the UC – which is stuck in what a Berkeley Political Review paper calls a “perpetual funding crisis” – have been largely ignored.
In other words, state legislators have succeeded in distracting the public from their failure to address the UC’s funding woes.
California lawmakers need to stop taking the easy way out by using last year’s audit as a distraction from the UC’s pressing financial problems. Instead of scoring political points by criticizing UCOP’s budget, the state legislature should start procuring an adequate level of long-term funding for the UC through the state budgetary process.
The legislature’s fixation on UCOP’s minuscule budget – which amounts to a fraction of the UC’s total expenditures – seems especially ridiculous in light of the UC’s far greater budgetary problems. The 2008-2012 California budget crisis, while a distant memory in the minds of many state lawmakers newly accustomed to billion-dollar budget surpluses, imposed enduring financial constraints on the University.
When state lawmakers made heavy cuts to state higher education funding, the UC Regents were forced to raise tuition by more than 30 percent in 2009. As a result, the University is now dependent on tuition payments for a large part of its academic budget.
For obvious reasons, this dependence on tuition payments has not been good for students. Graduates of the University exit with an average of more than $20,000 in student loan debt, according to a report from UCOP. Graduates saddled with significant student loan debt are often unable to purchase homes, start businesses or pursue their career goals. These financial constraints not only affect the futures of UC students, but also have ramifications for the California economy as a whole.
But these are not the only consequences of the UC’s growing reliance on tuition payments. Many middle-class applicants may be unable to access higher education altogether if the UC continues to treat students like ATMs. In fact, according to the Washington Post, the sky-high cost of a college education is increasingly shutting out middle-income applicants whose parents’ incomes are too high to qualify them for Pell Grants – federal subsidies for college students who can’t afford the full cost of their education.
Even if the University’s reliance on tuition payments could be justified, UC funding levels have not kept pace with the system’s increasing responsibilities. As an article in the UCSD Guardian observes, the “absolute level” of UC funding has not changed meaningfully since the 1997-1998 academic year, in spite of the fact that the University has admitted more students and introduced many more academic programs in the intervening years. Simply put, the legislature is exerting more pressure on the UC to fulfill its responsibilities in an increasingly strained budgetary context.
This clearly untenable situation can be remedied if state lawmakers ensure the UC’s funding keeps pace with its expansive responsibilities by appropriating a higher level of funding for higher education out of the state’s General Fund. Only then will the University of California be able to accommodate a steadily growing student population while maintaining its high quality of instruction, as well as a wide array of student programs.
Some will argue prioritizing UCOP reform is necessary to curry favor with legislators and obtain a long-term funding stream for the UC. If the UC agrees to prioritize UCOP reform, the argument goes, state legislators would be convinced that the University is committed to responsible budgeting and deserves additional funding. However, allowing state legislators to prioritize UCOP reform would change the conversation around the UC and frame the issue in terms of accountability and greater legislative oversight. If the legislative debate is framed in this way, state lawmakers will continue to be able to avoid addressing the difficult issue of long-term UC funding.
Criticizing UCOP for its budgetary failures might seem politically expedient. But when it comes to the UC, state lawmakers have bigger fish to fry.