Reduced class offerings and staff layoffs are expected next year even as spending is slashed at the Oakland headquarters to help ease reductions at all 10 campuses.
By Larry Gordon, Los Angeles Times
March 17, 2011
Reporting from San Francisco — The University of California regents Wednesday heard grim predictions on how proposed state budget cuts would affect students and faculty even as officials sought to soften the blow by slashing spending at the UC headquarters and shifting the savings to the system’s 10 campuses.
“The painful truth is that we are at the point of compromising educational quality,” UC Santa Cruz Chancellor George Blumenthal told the Board of Regents.
He was among several campus leaders who gave the board forecasts about reduced class offerings and staff layoffs that are likely next year. Among other areas, some key required courses may be offered only once a year, making it harder for students to graduate on time, Blumenthal said.
At the meeting in San Francisco, UC President Mark Yudof announced that the system’s Oakland headquarters and other centralized UC offices will cut their budgets $50 million, or about 17%, and use the money to ease reductions on campuses next year.
But even that, officials said, would make up only a small part of the $500 million that Gov. Jerry Brown has suggested cutting from UC’s budget. That amount could double if his plan to extend several temporary taxes fails.
Without those tax measures, UC will face pressure to increase tuition beyond the 8% already scheduled this fall, as well as to trim enrollment and lay off employees, Yudof said. Although tenured professors would be protected, “almost everything else would be up for grabs,” he said.
The UC leader also said he wanted to give the campuses additional flexibility to cut spending and raise revenues.
UC Berkeley Chancellor Robert J. Birgeneau said he would like campuses to be able to set student tuition within a range, a matter that is now uniform and established centrally.
But the idea of UC campuses charging different tuition rates is controversial and, at a news conference they both attended, Santa Cruz’s Blumenthal said he and others oppose it, saying it damages the concept of a university system.
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They could cut the budget substantially, retain all of the classes, and keep the same number of students if they would simply put the professors to work. Most of them only teach a few hours a week. If the legislators were serious about the students, they would do an audit of the amount of time actually spent teaching and preparing for class. The taxpayers would be outraged. Anyone out there listening? I have heard some of the professors bragging about how little they work. I was angry.
Ditto to the above comment!. I can count on both hands the times my professors actually interfaced with us undergrads. Most of my tuition went to grad students attempting to live up to the PhD’s reputation. And how about not paying them for sabbaticals?