UC tuition debate threatens its independence

By Katy Murphy

As a former governor and cabinet secretary, Janet Napolitano came to the University of California with hefty political credentials many hoped she would wield in Sacramento as a champion for the state’s prestigious public research university. But the UC president’s play for more state money after years of deep budget cuts has put her and the 147-year old institution on the firing line.

California’s popular governor, frustrated lawmakers and fee-weary students reacted harshly when Napolitano and the regents set up a confrontation by threatening to raise student fees if the state falls short of the university’s demands.

“I can’t remember a period where tensions have been this high, and it’s concerning,” said John A. Pérez, a former Assembly speaker appointed last year by Gov. Jerry Brown to the UC board of regents.

The first clues into how the showdown will end could be revealed this week when Napolitano and Brown, who have been meeting privately to hash out their differences, make their initial report to the regents.

Tuition hikes are never popular, but Napolitano’s plan triggered widespread student outrage and a flood of bills to bring the university under greater state control, even from lawmakers friendly to the system. Among their actions:

• Assembly Speaker Toni Atkins, D-San Diego, declared in December that lawmakers would scour, line by line, UC’s $7 billion operating budget. Last year, she tried to funnel an extra $100 million to UC and CSU.
• A group of lawmakers proposed a constitutional amendment to strip UC of some of its autonomy because, as Sen. Ricardo Lara, D-Bell Gardens, said, “The UC Board of Regents … appears to be out of touch with average working-class families.”
• Assemblyman Roger Hernandez, D-West Covina, has proposed limiting UC employee compensation to $500,000.
• Brown directly threatened UC’s budget, stating it would get none of the $119 million he had set aside for the system next year if it raised student fees, enforcing a four-year tuition freeze he set in 2013.

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

While the university says it needs the money, the governor has long argued that state taxpayers and students can’t keep financing the system’s rising costs and that UC needs to make radical changes to live within its means.

Although a recent poll showed voters siding with Brown against rising tuition, one UC regent argues that the public debate has led to a deeper understanding of the system’s needs.

“We’ve had this terrible budget problem building for some time, and it’s been difficult to get through to the public,” said Regent George Kieffer. “The fact that it’s a public issue is a good thing.”

But early this month, as record numbers of college applicants awaited admissions news, Napolitano touched another nerve: During the budget standoff, she announced in-state enrollment will remain flat.

The news overshadowed a concession to state lawmakers — a cap on out-of-state enrollment at the most popular campuses, UC Berkeley and UCLA, where students from other states and countries make up more than 20 percent of all undergraduates. The university has, despite its best attempts, been unable to shake the widespread perception that the growing numbers of out-of-state students are taking seats away from Californians.

“I am concerned that UC has lost sight of its mission — to provide a high-quality education for the California students whose families built and pay for the university,” said Atkins, also an ex-officio UC regent, after Napolitano’s testimony.

The university is not alone in its financial predicament. Public colleges across the country have been steadily increasing tuition and recruiting out-of-state students — who pay much more — to make up for deep cuts in state support. As a result, they have acted more like private institutions, relying more heavily each year on tuition dollars and private donations.

Napolitano declined to be interviewed for this article, but some observers doubt UC’s politically astute president has been surprised by the fierce blowback to her tuition strategy. As budget negotiations go on, she will continue to argue UC needs to be made whole from the debilitating cuts of the Great Recession, predicts Bill Tierney, co-director of the University of Southern California’s Pullias Center for Higher Education.

“She’s a politician at heart, and I think she is going to use all there is at her disposal to try to make that case,” Tierney said. “Personally, I’m not sure I would have chosen raising tuition as the starting point for the conversation, but she’s gotten our attention.”

If the flurry of bills and proposals on UC spending is any sign, that attention could erode UC’s relative autonomy.

One example: The committee combing through UC’s finances has zeroed in on its pension costs as an area ripe for trimming, noting that the salary limit for calculating UC employee pensions — $265,000 — is more than twice that of other state employees.

Panel members also say faculty should teach more — which could reduce their time for research — and the system should spend more of its tax dollars on expanding enrollment.

The UC funding debate has made lawmakers realize that “even with new money coming into the budget, there’s not enough money to go around,” said Kevin McCarty, D-Sacramento, who heads the Assembly budget subcommittee reviewing UC spending.

The question now, he said, is, “What are California taxpayers getting for that?”

[Source]: San Jose Mercury News