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By Ravi Doshi

Sept. 28, 2009 at 4:42 a.m.

The University of California system is often considered one of the best systems of higher public education in the United States.

In addition to producing nearly 55,000 graduates and seven percent of Ph.D.s annually, UC spends more than $4.5 billion on research annually, developing industries and scholarship ranging from biotechnology to communications.

Beyond its academic contributions, the system serves to oil the California economic engine, employing nearly 400,000 Californians statewide, and contributing nearly $14 billion in economic activity to the state annually.

But, in recent years, the fiscal woes of the state have forced drastic cuts to the public’s contribution to the UCs budget and operations. Since 1990, the state of California has spent 40 percent less per student, and in the last two years alone, has reduced its support for the system by $813 million – a nearly 20 percent cut.

Such reductions have forced increases in student fees and class sizes, decreases in faculty salaries and recruitment efforts, and more broadly, have many questioning the state’s commitment and ability to support the higher education system.

“The candid truth is that the state of California has become an unreliable partner and has been an unreliable partner for years,” said UC President Mark Yudof in a meeting earlier this month.

Such sentiments have generated discussions of the continuing relationship between the state and the UC and have many exploring new options for the sustainability of the system, including the possibility of privatization.

UC Commission on the Future

Over the course of the next few months, the discussion of the relationship between the state and the UC may be especially prominent in meetings of the recently formed UC Commission on the Future.

The 24 -member commission, which held its first meeting in early September and is composed primarily of university administrators, faculty, staff and students, is charged with crafting a new vision for the university given its mission and budgetary needs.

To assist the process, its members will serve on five working groups, which will focus on the size and shape of the UC, its education and curriculum, access and affordability, and funding and research strategies, respectively.

“What’s going to come out of this are concrete ideas as to how to move forward given the new political climate in the state. (The commission) should serve as a tool for the legislature to see what has happened to the UC, and hopefully, spark a renewed vision and relationship between the state and the higher education system,” said Victor Sanchez, president of the University of California Student’s Association, and a member of the commission.

While the working groups have not yet begun to meet, they are expected to deliver their findings to the UC Regents at their meeting in March.

Until that time, members will discuss a variety of approaches and solutions, including examining those implemented at other university systems across the nation.

“There is no set agenda for what will come out of the commission. The idea is to bring people – primarily from the UC community – together, to see what the UC needs to do in the long run to maintain access, quality and affordability,” said Steve Montiel, media relations representative for the UC Office of the President. “Everything is on the table.”

Privatization: The “Michigan Model”

One option that the commission will likely examine is the proposal to move the UC away from dependence on the state through a method of privatization popularly referred to as the “Michigan Model.”

“We ought to move in a direction where the state provides a subvention to the university, rather than appropriating funds for them. So, (the university) enters into an agreement with the state as essentially a private institution, but as sort of a public-private corporation,” said Chancellor Emeritus Charles E. Young.

Under the model, increases in student fees and out-of-state student enrollment – offset at least partially by corresponding increases in financial aid – would be used to further fund the system. These actions, coupled with increased fundraising from external sources, would theoretically, according to proponents, provide the university system with the means to rely less on financial support from the state.

With such decreased reliance on state support would come increased autonomy for administrators on individual campuses to determine how to spend resources according to campus needs, and the ability to take actions that could result in student fees being adjusted on a more stable and predictable basis.

“In theory the UC is independent, but it almost always acquiesces to whatever the state says. The ultimate control the state has is the control of the budget – if you don’t do what we tell you, we’ll cut your budget – so the university does what they are told. (Privatization) would get us away from that,” Young said.

Other Options

Despite its implementation at other public university systems across the country, including the Universities of Michigan and Virginia, the “Michigan Model” of privatization is not without its controversies.

Opponents have cited higher rates of student fees, as well as decreased accessibility for in-state students, and the drop in college ranking of the University of Michigan from No. 8 in 1987 to No. 27 this year, in the often cited U.S. News and World Report rankings, as evidence of the failure of the plan.

“(Privatization) is the worst idea California has ever conceptualized,” said Lt. Gov. John Garamendi, who also serves as a Regent for the University of California.

For Garamendi, and others like him, the answer lies not in a break between the UC and the state of California, but rather, in increased investment on the part of the state to the higher education system.

To that effect, Garamendi has proposed the creation of a permanent higher education fund for the state, similar to the fund used in the state of Texas, and funded largely by tax revenues on oil producers.

Such a bill was proposed earlier this year in the California State Assembly by Majority Leader Alberto Torrico (D-Fremont) and is argued to be able to generate at least $500 million for the state, annually.

“California is currently the only place in the world that gives its oil away for free to the oil companies,” Garamendi said.

And while a tax increase of this nature would face the structural challenges of the California system to change tax policy, proponents believe in its viability.

“The question for California is, are we as Californians willing to invest half of 1 percent of our annual wealth in the one most important economic and social development tool we have – higher education. I believe Californians are willing to do that,” Garamendi said.

If not, Garamendi, Sanchez and others argue, at stake will not only be the higher education system of the state, but more broadly, its full economic and social potential going forward.

http://beta.dailybruin.com/articles/2009/9/28/uc-debates-going-private/

By email:

We at the University of Maryland stand with the students, faculty and staff throughout the University of California system who are rising up against corporatization and budget austerity. From the well-organized walkouts to the courageous occupations, you serve as an example to those of us across the nation who face similar conditions. At the University of Maryland, we have faced round after round of cuts and furloughs, and a tuition hike isn’t far off. Without action, Maryland seems to be headed the same place as California.
Our University also has administrators who are more interested in construction projects than maintaining a quality accessible education for students or a just workplace for staff and faculty. Until shared governance becomes more than just an empty phrase, we won’t be able to get our schools’ priorities straight. We’ve all been following your work closely and we turn to you for inspiration in our own struggles. Unity between students, faculty and staff is an essential part of any meaningful large-scale action, and you’ve kicked ass at it. We look forward to helping to build the burgeoning national student movement to which you’ve given voice. Keep up the good work, and we’ll see you in the streets.

Love and Rage,

Student Power Action Mob

(which is)
College Park Students for a Democratic Society
Students for Sensible Drug Policy
Terps for Choice
Community Roots
Students for Justice in Palestine

http://www.umdspp.com

We are occupying this building at the University of California, Santa Cruz, because the current situation has become untenable. Across the state, people are losing their jobs and getting evicted, while social services are slashed. California’s leaders from state officials to university presidents have demonstrated how they will deal with this crisis: everything and everyone is subordinated to the budget. They insulate themselves from the consequences of their own fiscal mismanagement, while those who can least afford it are left shouldering the burden. Every solution on offer only accelerates the decay of the State of California. It remains for the people to seize what is theirs.

The current attack on public education – under the guise of a fiscal emergency – is merely the culmination of a long-term trend. California’s regressive tax structure has undermined the 1960 Master Plan for free education. In this climate, the quality of K-12 education and the performance of its students have declined by every metric. Due to cuts to classes in Community Colleges, over 50,000 California youth have been turned away from the doors of higher education. California State University will reduce its enrollment by 40,000 students system wide for 2010-2011. We stand in solidarity with students across the state because the same things are happening to us. At the University of California, the administration will raise student fees to an unprecedented $10,300, a 32 percent increase in one year. Graduate students and lecturers return from summer vacation to find that their jobs have been cut; faculty and staff are forced to take furloughs. Entire departments are being gutted. Classes for undergraduates and graduates are harder to get into while students pay more. The university is being run like a corporation.

Let’s be frank: the promise of a financially secure life at the end of a university education is fast becoming an illusion. The jobs we are working toward will be no better than the jobs we already have to pay our way through school. Close to three-quarters of students work, many full-time. Even with these jobs, student loan volume rose 800 percent from 1977 to 2003. There is a direct connection between these deteriorating conditions and those impacting workers and families throughout California. Two million people are now unemployed across the state. 1.5 million more are underemployed out of a workforce of twenty million. As formerly secure, middle-class workers lose their homes to foreclosure, Depression-era shantytowns are cropping up across the state. The crisis is severe and widespread, yet the proposed solutions – the governor and state assembly organizing a bake sale to close the budget gap – are completely absurd.

We must face the fact that the time for pointless negotiations is over. Appeals to the UC administration and Sacramento are futile; instead, we appeal to each other, to the people with whom we are struggling, and not to those whom we struggle against. A single day of action at the university is not enough because we cannot afford to return to business as usual. We seek to form a unified movement with the people of California. Time and again, factional demands are turned against us by our leaders and used to divide social workers against teachers, nurses against students, librarians against park rangers, in a competition for resources they tell us are increasingly scarce. This crisis is general, and the revolt must be generalized. Escalation is absolutely necessary. We have no other option.

Occupation is a tactic for escalating struggles, a tactic recently used at the Chicago Windows and Doors factory and at the New School in New York City. It can happen throughout California too. As undergraduates, graduate students, faculty, and staff, we call on everyone at the UC to support this occupation by continuing the walkouts and strikes into tomorrow, the next day, and for the indefinite future. We call on the people of California to occupy and escalate.

Press Contact: (eight-three-one) 332.8916
http://occupyCA.wordpress.com/