CSUN University News Clippings

Commentary: Until state’s fixed, UC system’s in jeopardy

(July 15, 2009)

By Mary O. Furner

California residents are still largely unaware of the devastation being wreaked upon higher education in their state by mammoth cuts to the budgets of the 10 campuses of the University of California system.

Once lauded as the best public university system in the world, providing world-class undergraduate and graduate training to the state’s best students at a reasonable cost, the UC system is now turning away highly qualified undergraduate students, and its graduate and professional programs are seriously compromised. The system risks losing many of its best faculty.

UC plans to admit 2,500 fewer students for fall 2009. Student fees have risen dramatically in the past six years. A 9.3 percent increase for next year will bring in-state student fees across the system to about $8,720, and there are projections for much larger increases in the near future. Hiring freezes and reduced budgets will result in fewer teachers, larger class sizes, fewer classes and longer times to graduation. California families are paying more for an education whose quality is being seriously compromised.

The heart and soul of a university is its faculty. The University of California Regents will vote at their meeting this week on a proposed salary cut for all UC employees. Graduated by salary level, the pay cut ranges from 4 percent to 10 percent and runs about 8 percent for most faculty.

Faculty salaries have already fallen well below those at peer institutions across the country, causing departures of some of our best teacher/ researchers to other institutions.

This brain drain will only worsen. Proposed matching of these pay cuts with a furlough equivalent to the reduced pay will do nothing to assist staff employees in paying their bills. For professors who do research and community and national service as well as teaching, there is no such thing as working “on the clock.” In addition to hours spent in the classroom and meeting individually with students, university teaching involves extensive preparation that will not diminish by 8 percent.

Professors take very seriously their obligation to contribute to the growth of knowledge through their research, to communicate their findings to others through publication, to stay current with the developments in their fields and to bring this constantly changing knowledge to their students. For research faculty, the furloughs are thus a fiction.

Barring a miraculous resolution of the budget crisis, the cuts will be worse in 2010-2011. Community colleges and the California State University system face drastic cuts as well, requiring massive reductions in student admissions. These cuts come at a time when higher education is more critical than ever to the state’s economic future.

The Public Policy Institute of California has noted a widening gap in the skills that our economy will need in the 21st century.

Equally important, access to higher education is a vital aspect in maintaining political, social and economic democracy. Our students benefit from studying among a diverse population that depends on wide access and financial aid to low-income families, which are also threatened by a proposed reduction in Cal Grants.

California taxpayers need to realize that political choices are dismantling a powerful engine of economic growth and personal fulfillment for its people. This is not necessary.

Yes, there is a national financial crisis, with high unemployment and reduced tax revenues at all levels. But the California budget crisis is the product of longer-acting forces. We have a dysfunctional state Legislature that is hampered by term limits and working rules that make it impossible for an elected majority actually to govern. We have a deeply flawed tax structure that fails to raise sufficient revenue and actually worsens the impact of economic downturns.

We have allowed continuing deficits to impair the state’s ability to borrow. We have endured a tragic failure of leadership by recent governors from both parties.

We need to bear in mind as well that this situation was not chosen by the regents; it was forced upon them.

Citizens concerned about the economic future of California should demand that the governor and the Legislature begin immediately to get the houses of government in order. Those who care about preserving their university system should contact their Senate and Assembly representatives, the regents and the chancellors of the universities in their districts. The people should insist upon maintaining post-secondary education in California as an accessible and dynamic public system that encourages individual initiative and remains an engine for economic growth.

Publication: Sacramento Bee