UC funding: Napolitano, Brown give initial report on budget stalemate

By Katy Murphy

SAN FRANCISCO — In their first public report about high-level talks to break a budget stalemate, Gov. Jerry Brown and UC President Janet Napolitano said Wednesday they are making progress but gave no indication they have reached any agreements in their showdown over funding the University of California.

“Hopefully in the near future, without putting a date on it, we will be able to return to the board with concrete proposals,” Napolitano said.

The university president described the talks as productive in her introductory remarks to the UC board of regents on Wednesday, and repeated her desire to keep tuition “as low as possible and as predictable as possible” but “without sacrificing a single iota of the quality of the university.”

She later indicated that “change is in the air and we have to embrace it and move forward in the best way possible,” but did not specify what those changes might be.

Brown and Napolitano have met twice since January to consider proposals to cut UC’s costs while improving quality and affordability, such as offering three-year degrees.

The standoff began in November when Napolitano and the regents announced a plan to raise tuition for each of the next five years if the state did not give the system the equivalent level of funding.

For students, the 5 percent annual increase would raise UC’s tuition and fees to as high as $15,560 in 2019 — about 28 percent higher than now.

While the university says it needs the money to recover from nearly $1 billion in recession-era budget cuts, the governor sees it differently. He has long argued that state taxpayers and students can’t keep financing the system’s rising costs, that the state is trying to restore what it took from the system during the Great Recession, and that UC needs to make fundamental changes to live within its means.

Brown announced in January that if UC hiked student fees, it would get none of the additional $119 million he had set aside for the system next year — more than it would generate by hiking tuition.

UC’s “tuition stability plan,” passed in November, included the promise of admitting more California students, who are applying to the system in record numbers. But earlier this month, Napolitano told lawmakers UC would keep its in-state enrollment flat during the stalemate, arguing it could not afford to enroll more California students without more money.

While the debate has been tense, the two leaders seemed upbeat and relaxed as they discussed their progress.

“I’m enjoying it,” Brown said of the committee. “I think we’re moving in the right direction and will have more to report back very soon.”

There is always an inherent tension between the university and the state, Brown said. “At the end of the day the Legislature and the governor do provide the ultimate yes or no,” he said. “Inevitably I am the one who has to say no, and ultimately I will if I have to.”

[Source]: San Jose Mercury News