Poll: Californians say public colleges need more state funding — but won’t pay for it

By Katy Murphy

If the statewide student protests weren’t enough to signal widespread opposition to a new UC tuition-hike plan, a new poll reveals just how many Californians — Democrats and Republicans alike — dislike higher student fees: 77 percent.

The results show the majority of Californians believe the state is failing to properly fund its prized public colleges and universities. But there is a catch: Most would be unwilling to pay more taxes to maintain higher education’s current funding levels, according to a report released late Wednesday by the Public Policy Institute of California.

So, if not from student fees or taxes, where do Californians think the money could come from?

“I think they’re implicitly saying (to state lawmakers), ‘Let’s move money around,'” said Henry Brady, dean of UC Berkeley’s Goldman School of Public Policy. “They think our priorities are out of order.”

Something of that idea appeared Monday in the Legislature as Assembly Speaker Toni Atkins proposed experimenting with zero-based budgeting, starting with UC.

What she wants, she said, is “a thorough public discussion” of the system’s budget in a process that would give the Legislature unprecedented influence over UC’s spending.

She wants the university to justify every penny it spends on everything from salaries to building maintenance to office supplies.

“That allows for a thorough public discussion of the items contained in an organization’s budget, and it gives them the opportunity to show that each dollar is being spent for the intended purpose and in the right way,” Atkins said.

Her plan appeared to be a response to UC’s revelation last week that it will raise tuition by a maximum of 5 percent a year for the next five years unless the state gives it more money. But it might also be her way of making a case for more funding — she is proposing an additional $50 million for UC — in exchange for the accountability that voters want.

Indeed, more than half of those surveyed last month about state government spending said they believed the state wasted “a lot” of tax dollars. All but 10 percent said they thought there was some level of government waste.

“I think it’s important for us to keep in mind that many Californians don’t trust the government, especially when it comes to how money is being spent,” said Mark Baldassare, the policy institute’s president and CEO.

But Baldassare noted that some tax increases are more palatable than others. Californians are in favor of increasing taxes on cigarettes and alcohol, the poll revealed. And just over half of those his institute surveyed said they would be in favor of extending Proposition 30, the successful 2012 state ballot measure that raised the sales taxes by one-fourth of a cent and income taxes on earnings over $250,000.

The survey also provides some insight into a general anxiety over the cost of college — now, well over $30,000 per year at UC, including housing and food and $20,000 to $25,000 for CSU students living on campus. Tuition at UC, now $12,192, would rise by up to 28 percent by 2019, under the UC plan.

Asked about the affordability of higher education, 59 percent said they thought it was a “big problem,” while another 27 percent said it was “somewhat of a problem.” The margin of error in the poll, taken from Nov. 10 to 17, was plus or minus 3.7 percentage points for all adults. and 4.0 for registered voters.

The poll results highlight the dilemma for state lawmakers, Baldassare said.

“The challenge really is for our policymakers to try to determine how we can provide more funding for a service which most Californians think is not receiving enough funding, when they aren’t willing to pay higher taxes for it,” he said.

But Brady was not convinced Californians are so firmly against raising their own taxes for the benefit of the state’s public colleges and universities. He noted that the poll question doesn’t specify an amount, which — if reasonably low — might have yielded a more positive response. (About 42 percent said they would support a tax hike.)

“That’s just an open ended — ‘They’re going to raise my taxes, God knows by how much’ — question,” he said. “What is a surprise, I think, is that so many people said they would be willing to pay more.”

Staff writer Jessica Calefati contributed to this report. Follow Katy Murphy at Twitter.com/katymurphy.

Other poll findings

A Public Policy Institute of California telephone survey of 1,704 adult Californians interviewed from Nov. 10 to 17 also revealed:

Taxes: Majorities of adults favor raising state taxes on cigarettes (74 percent) and alcoholic beverages (68 percent).Economy: Fifty-two percent of adults say the state will have good times in the next year, but 55 percent say that children will grow up to be worse off than their parents. A record 68 percent say the state is divided into haves and have-nots.
Water: Water or drought is named by 23 percent as the state’s most important issue. Majorities would vote for water-supply project bond measures.
Trust: Two-thirds say state government can be trusted to do what is right only some of the time or never. And two-thirds say state government is run by a few big interests looking out for themselves.