how to address possible $372M cut
UC sets budget priorities
BY cynthia lee
UCLA Today Staff
Faced with painful decisions to raise fees and reduce freshman
enrollment targets, the Board of Regents on Jan. 14 identified priorities
that will become the basis for UC’s own budget proposal in
March and for its message to Sacramento in response to proposed
cuts of $372 million.
To help close a $14-billion state budget shortfall, Gov. Arnold
Schwarzenegger has called for cuts that would eliminate seats for
3,200 freshmen in the fall; boost the student-faculty ratio; raise
fees for undergraduates, nonresident students and, by the largest
percentage, graduate students; reduce support for most professional
schools (including medicine, dentistry, law, business and theater/film
and television) so that higher fees would have to fill the gap;
reduce financial aid; and further slash budgets for outreach, research,
libraries and administration. Once again, there would be no state
funds for cost-of-living increases for faculty and staff.
After enduring three tough budget years and now with prospects
of a fourth, UC is feeling each successive round of cuts gnaw away
at the quality of the institution, said President Robert C. Dynes.
UC’s net state-funded operating budget for the next fiscal
year would be $2.67 billion, down 8% from the current $2.9 billion,
if the governor’s budget is adopted. Since 2000-01, state
support will have sunk more than 16% while enrollment has climbed
more than 15%.
In making UC’s case to state legislators, regents agreed
to focus on six priorities: student/faculty ratio, salaries, UC’s
research mission (graduate student support), enrollment, fees and
outreach. By concentrating on these areas, UC leaders said they
hope to maintain and enhance the quality of the university, protect
access and affordability and honor the master plan.
“We will be fighting very hard against more cuts,”
said Larry Hershman, UC vice president for the budget. “The
choices are all bad. None of the options are popular. ... History
has taught us that it's better to work with him (the governor) than
to start a war. We need to get the message across about the importance
of the university to the economy of this state. We are part of the
solution, not part of the problem.”
In addition to maintaining graduate student support, one of the
regents’ goals will be to protect the student-faculty ratio,
which is at 19.7-to-1. The governor is proposing to cut spending
on faculty by 5% ($35.3 million), which would bump the ratio up
to 20.7-to-1.
Another goal that is “absolutely at the heart of our assuring
quality,” Hershman said, is to continue to pay faculty merit
increases. Faculty salaries now lag 10.5% behind UC’s comparison
group. A longer-term goal will be a return to paying competitive
salaries to staff and faculty, he noted.
“To me, there’s nothing sadder than a qualified student
who’s not going to be admitted to a UC,” said Regent
Sherry Lansing. The governor wants UC to enroll 3,200 fewer students
next fall, a prospect that UC must deal with now as campuses set
enrollment targets. Under the plan, specific UC campuses would guarantee
to accept these students as transfers if they meet requirements
at a community college, which they could attend without paying fees,
according to the governor’s plan.
At UCLA, the specific fallout from the governor’s budget
proposal is still being assessed, but the overall punch it delivered
was clearly felt.
“These proposed cuts in financial aid will affect middle-class
families, but even low-income students are not going to qualify
for as much in grants as in the past,” said Ronald Johnson,
director of the Financial Aid Office.
Graduate education, said Vice Chancellor Claudia Mitchell-Kernan
of the Graduate Division, would be severely damaged. “Already,
California is investing far less in graduate education, compared
to most other large states. Without graduate education, this state
cannot meet demands in the labor force for substantial numbers of
people with post-baccalaureate training,” she said.
Already struggling to match the heftier financial aid packages
being offered top graduate students by other universities, UCLA
must find the money somewhere to pay the higher fees proposed in
order to compete, the vice chancellor said. Departments are now
trying to determine what kind of aid packages they can offer students.
“When you raise fees for graduate education, what you’re
actually doing is sending the university another bill because we
have to provide for these higher fees in our offers,” she
said. “And we have no means to do that.”
Steve Olsen, UCLA vice chancellor of finance and budget, said
campus administrators are now supplying the Office of the President
with information so that UC can assess the impact of the governor’s
proposal on student fees, nonresident tuition and graduate student
support.
The regents are expected to vote on possible fee increases in
March to give students and their families enough time to prepare.
To learn more about the governor’s proposal, visit: www.ucop.edu/news/archives/2004/jan09a.htm.
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