mortiz055

The November UC Regents meeting featured a battle of the paradigms between administrative and student accounts of student finances.  UC Office of the President (UCOP) officials, led by Executive Vice President Nathan Brostrom, sustained their longstanding claim that generous UC financial aid protects all low-income and most middle-income students from tuition costs. The Berkeley campus issued a statement citing the main talking point: California students from families with annual incomes under $80,000 will continue to have tuition and fees fully covered by financial aid, and the vast majority of California students from families earning less than $150,000 a year will see no increase. Upping the volume on this message, the immediate past chancellor of UC Berkeley, Robert Birgeneau, claimed that this high financial aid depends on high tuition , so that "frozen tuition means ever-increasing debt for low-income students." While senior managers focused on tuition , stude...

Finally it wasn't about the money today but about the decline in quality.  And it was the students who explained the core issue as getting affordable quality in their education.    Left: Felicia Garcia, Julian Mariano, and Kimmy Tran at UC Davis. Photo credit: Paul Kitagaki, Jr, AP). One such student was Melvin Singh, AS VP for External Affairs at UCSB, who said students struggle to get into classes, to meet with TAs, to get academic help.  His counterpart at Berkeley, Caitlin Quinn, told KCRW's Warren Olney that money worries are "a huge factor in how you do in school" (13').  She said, Students don't see the benefit of so many administrative positions.  At UC Berkeley it seems like there's a new vice-chancellor of something-or-other every week. . . . I think students are fed up with what they see as administrative bloat. They aren't seeing this supposed quality education. I've been here for three years and ever since I've been here students ...

I thought that I would post links to some of the key documents and proposals from this week's Regents' meeting so that people would have easier access.  I am simply using the titles that they are providing (no editorial commentary involved).  If people have questions or comments please feel free to use the comments on this post to have an open discussion. APPROVAL OF UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA 2015-16 BUDGET FOR CURRENT  OPERATIONS APPROVAL OF LONG-TERM STABILITY PLAN FOR TUITION AND FINANCIAL  AID APPROVAL OF THREE-YEAR FINANCIAL SUSTAINABILITY PLAN UPDATE ON LONG RANGE FINANCIAL PLAN ACCEPTANCE OF THE 2014-24 CAPITAL FINANCIAL PLAN UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA FINANCIAL REPORTS, 2014 APPROVAL OF ESTABLISHMENT OF THE NEW SENIOR MANAGEMENT GROUP  POSITION OF SENIOR ADVISOR TO THE PRESIDENT FOR INNOVATION AND  ENTREPRENEURSHIP, AND THE MARKET REFERENCE ZONE FOR THE  POSITION AND APPOINTMENT OF AND COMPENSATION FOR SENIOR ADVISOR  TO THE PRESIDENT FOR INN...

As you have no doubt seen, UC and Sacramento have already begun the public relations war over UCOP's proposal to hike tuition up to 5% a year over the next 5 years.  President Napolitano and Chair Varner took to the appropriately named "Soapbox" section of the Sacramento Bee to try to justify their plan.  If they hoped to win over the Governor, Sacramento, or students, their efforts clearly failed.  As both the LAT and the Sacramento Bee are reporting, opposition is already intense and the Governor's office is suggesting that the State may lower proposed funding increases if UC increases tuition.  The LAT  has more on the long debate ahead. First off let's admit that there is a problem.  UC's costs are going up and recent small increases in state funding neither make up for previous deep cuts nor keep pace with the costs of supporting undergraduate education or sustaining graduate training and research infrastructure. State General Fund funding in 2014-...

What's coming are price hikes--big ones in UC Care.  (In contrast, the negative number at left is the subpar status of UC's benefits relative to market). That's the unloved UC self-insurance plan that was implemented last year over a hue-and-cry about its incomplete and inferior coverage.  On Tuesday, after voting in the midterm election, I went to the Santa Barbara Senate's forum on changes this year (prices here ), which revealed the obstacles to improvements going forward--both at the system level and at UCSB.  Here I'll discuss UC and UCSB together. The issue comes with a history that began last fall, with the gradual unveiling of new UC health care plans and of their various deficiencies.  The specific UCSB issue was the absence of the Tier 1 version of UC Care in the Santa Barbara area, which made medical costs higher for UCSB employees than for their peers on other campuses. After UCOP officials endured a large, angry meeting on the Santa Barbara campus, a p...