Higher Education Dealt Devastating Blow with Additional $300 Million Cut
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- By Brian Addison Follow @FoucaultDude
- | Wednesday, 14 December 2011 05:53
12:15pm | Despite California state revenues being up, the press conference held yesterday by Governor Jerry Brown dealt a devastating blow to higher education institutions across the state. With a $2.2 billion shortfall on estimated revenues, an additional $1 billion will be cut by enacting so-called "trigger cuts," a term used when a cut is automatically instituted because state leaders' original budget projections came short.
Employing a Latin phrase to emphasize his point, Brown put it succinctly when he stated, "Nemo dat [quod] non habet; it means, 'No man gives what he does not have.' The state cannot give what it does not have."
What the state does not have: $300 million for the three higher education systems within the state, consisting of the Universities of California (UC), the California State Universities (CSU), and the Community Colleges (CC).
The CSU and UC systems have already had a $650 million budget cut this year. The 23-campus CSU system, the nation's largest public higher education with 412,000 students and 43,000 faculty and staff, will now receive a total of $2 billion this year from the state. This is 27 percent below last year’s funding, bringing it to the lowest level of state support to CSU since 1997-98, although the system now has 90,000 more students. Chancellor Charles Reed, already under scrutiny from students and the public for the CSU Board's controversial recent vote, has publicly stated, "It is disheartening to say the least when your budget is cut by an initial $650 million, but to face an additional $100 million reduction mid-year makes things extremely challenging. We were aware that this was a possibility, and our campuses have been planning accordingly. However, the uncertainty of the overall fiscal outlook for the state is not encouraging, and the CSU has run out of good options."
The 10-campus UC system, comprised of about 230,00 students and over 200,000 faculty and staff members, will also face an additional $100 million cut. "The University has consistently objected to additional mid-year cuts," stated UC President Mark Yudof in a public statement, "and while we certainly understand the ongoing fiscal challenges the State faces, we are requesting that this latest reduction be considered a one-time cut to UC’s budget and not made a permanent reduction. We will ask to have this funding restored to UC at the beginning of the next fiscal year." In order to avoid a mid-year tuition hike, the university will look to draw reserves from its employee health care services fund — which is used to provide for a possible substantial increase in the cost of health care — to account for the cuts, according to UC spokesperson Steve Montiel.
The K-12 system, which possibly faced an overwhelming $1.4 billion cut, was given a far less detrimental blow with a $328 million, or what amounts to $55 per student. This cut was passed via Proposition 98 and Brown broke it into two parts: about $80 million for basic school funding, and on what educational expert Kathryn Baron calls "fuzzy," an enormous $248 million reduction in home-to-school transportation. Los Angeles Unified, the state's largest district, was given a monumental $38 million cut, which it claims will effectively shut down the school's busing program and leaving 35,000 students with the inability to get to school. LAUSD Superintendent John Deasy said the district will be suing the state in "support [of] our students in school and [to] act aggressively to halt the devastating cuts."
Management and the bureauacracy keep growing...never to be eliminated, so these bureaucrats can collect on their pension. Long Beach employees are entitled to work their 30 years without interruption, whether their services are needed or their heavy cost to the taxpayers.
Government is a problem that until recognized as such will play havoc on our lives and finances.
All the salaries, raises, pensions etc. need to be reevaluated....
Why should schools or students have to suffer? AND why should we pay for it!
-Why does the UC system have 1.15 students for each employee? Cruise Ships are run on better ratios
-The CSUs are a little better with 9.5 students for each employee
Why do these institutions have so many employees and the students are placed in classes with 30 to 50 other students?
That's one issue, the other is the pensions.
-Remember, for each position these employees hold, the liability is exponential. For example: a faculty who earns $100k and retires, is replaced by another for 5 or 10 years, then another, etc. Pretty soon, have to pay for several employees for a single job. It is very reasonable to see that position costing $500k or more a year.
The Governor agreed right after he was sworn in to allow the CTA, AFT, and administrator unions to maintain their sweetheart pensions. This was in return for the millions he received to get him into office. Nothing new here; the Governor now is setting up the public to pay more in taxes and bonds. Imagine that; the party for the poor is asking for more taxes from the very people who are unemployed; the poor. He will talk about digging into the wealthy with more taxes just as the president is doing. It sounds good but in the long run it will cost the working man his jobs. Yes, the rich public administrators, prison guards and other chosen ones will get richer and the rest of us will be asked to feel guilty because we do not want more taxes.
The monopoly needs to end. The mindset needs to change.
If students want to use college to "find themselves" that should do it on their own buck, not expect the taxpayers to do it.
Also, I'm still wondering why the Governor is hell-bent on spending scarce taxpayer funds to build the train to nowhere.
What's so sad is that for about $32 a head we could refund all higher education in CA. That we don't immediately do this, but put our money in other priorities (for instance, the prison system), is a sad comment indeed. See this great post from Stanley Glantz (who taught me biostatistics in graduate school):
http://utotherescue.blogspot.com/2011/09/problem-is-privatization-and-it-can-be.html
Good jobs that do not require a degree from a university or at least some college courses are few are far between. Most good jobs require a degree. Heck, you have to have a four year degree to get a job at Enterprise, renting out cars to travelers. So if a degree is necessary to succeed and if we want to believe we're an equitable society, then it is important that everyone has access to education. (Perhaps you interpret access as entitlement?) An education that, even in the liberal arts, will help graduates make a better life for themselves and their families (and pay taxes).
We don't keep pushing students through at greater expense to tax payers. In fact, more of the expense is coming out of their own pockets due to tuition hikes.
On the issue of hefty salaries and pensions, professors in the CSU system took furloughs a few years back, have not been given the raises guaranteed in their contracts and their numbers are dwindling. If you look at the restructuring of the universities due to the economic crisis, you'll find that more and more part-time instructors are being hired to teach college courses. Some have PhDs, others have MAs or MSs. I have a friend who is one of these part timers with an MA. He works at four different schools trying to piece together a full time salary. I do not envy his situation. The other feature of the restructuring is the bloat at the administrative level. There are a lot more of them these days and they make a lot more than professors do (you can look at all of the salaries online). So I'm not sure you can pin this one on the professors.
Unfortunately, very few students I know are in college to "find themselves." They're desperate to get a degree in the hopes that they'll be hired by someone. It's an unfortunate focus. When they should be learning how to think, research, write, etc. they're stuck in the mindset that their degree is simply a means to an end. This is what they've been told by just about everyone, so it's not surprising that that is their attitude, but it's a terrible waste of education.
The point, at least for me, of higher education is two-fold... Firstly, there is a societal role it plays with its faculty:Â to have research centers which provide knowledge to maintain a higher standard of human health and communication (e.g. UCLA's Jonsson Cancer Center). Secondly, there is a individual role it plays to its attendees: to provide students reflective and critical skills TO GET THROUGH this ever-morphing world; to teach us how to handle the idea that our job may not always be there and we need to switch our brains and skills to shift with such changes. It is commonly known that lifelong professions are slowly becoming a thing of the past; given this, universities are not trade schools.Â
Anyone who did not think we would have the revenue shortfall that would trigger these automatic cuts is either foolish or delusional. Brown and the Democrats running the Assembly and Senate knew we would not have the revenues they projected and now can use the political expediency of the cuts they mandated to try to get their tax hike proposition passed.
Why would we give these people another dime of our money to spend? It is akin to giving money to an alcholic in front of a liquor store or an addict in front of a crack house.
Rail away students, faculty and administrators of the "unfairness" and "injustice" of these cuts but by and large you have supported and help elect those that have done this, and most likely will again in 2012 so you can go through the same angst for years to come.
Whether it is education, transportation or social services, there is corruption and waste. The only money we should be spending right now is to clean up and reduce the size of government, which is at the core of the problem.
http://www.caltax.org/201003_CalTaxResearchBulletin_Decade%20of%20Waste.pdf
http://www.caltax.org/DecadeOfWaste3-15-10.pdf.
"So if a degree is necessary to succeed and if we want to believe we're an equitable society, then it is important that everyone has access to education."
The "equitable society" is a sanitized term for the dream of Karl Marx and his followers in the liberal camp and has no place in our nation. I think the vast majority of our citizens much prefer individual rights to "Life, Liberty and the Pursuit of Happiness" as outlined in our Declaration of Independence. I certainly have no objection to education being readily available to anyone who pays their own way. In fact, also guarantees that students will take and their choice of a major and their studies seriously. If someone else is footing the bill, their tendency is to "follow their heart" taking Vegetarian Studies and the like.
"When they should be learning how to think, research, write, etc. they're stuck in the mindset that their degree is simply a means to an end."
This is something that young people should have acquired by the time they graduate high school, not rely on "higher education" to provide it. We are all aware that the secondary schools have failed at this task thanks to the NEA.
No BROWN, Cut public employee excessive salaries and pensions FIRST before you ask for ANY MORE money from us! It is patently unfair. Just because they filled your campaign coffers does NOT mean they should get special treatment over all of us. Just sickening and Corrupt. I will not pay a dime more for the high salaries. And I won't pay their pensions. I, and millions of us, will LEAVE first. You'll have NO ONE to tax!!! Won't that be hysterical???