August 2006

 

Budget Pathways and UC's Future

 

Current Budget Trends and the Future of the University of California, a recent report of the University Committee on Planning and Budget (UCPB), grew out of the committee’s belief that short term budget decisions have long-term implications for the quality and nature of the University. Completed in May, the report provides an in-depth and authoritative analysis of different budget options open to UC and the effect of each in such areas as student fees and access, faculty and employee salaries, graduate education, and the role of private fund-raising. The report plays out four scenarios: the current budget path as determined by the Compact with Higher Education; a return to recent state funding levels; a return to state funding levels of 1990; and a public funding freeze that would in effect privatize UC.

 

UPCB Chair Stanton Glantz sees this kind of analysis as necessary for being able to move into the future by design, not by accident. “UC has been muddling from budget crisis to budget crisis, doing the best it could in the bad years and hoping to make things up in the good. No one has examined the long-term implications of this strategy or the implications of the path we are now on. The Compact is a recipe for starvation and privatization that will not work, at least for those who believe in a public university. We hope that by forcing people to confront those realities, we can begin the process of rebuilding a great public university.”

 

While still in draft form, the report received wide input from the Senate and the administration, and has been discussed by the Council of Chancellors and the Long-Range Guidance Team, the systemwide group that, under the leadership of the Provost, is developing strategies for UC’s future through the year 2025, including a focus on viable financial models.

 

UCPB Vice Chair Christopher Newfield, Professor of English at UC Santa Barbara, Calvin Moore, Professor of Mathematics, UC Berkeley, and Henning Bohn, Professor of Economics, UC Santa Barbara, were the report’s primary authors. Newfield, whose research interests include budget politics and trends in higher education, remembers arriving at UC as an assistant professor when the cuts of the early 1990s were being applied. “I’ve seen firsthand the potential lost to bad budgets. UC faculty do research that is directly relevant to the state’s major problems and opportunities, and yet our capacity here has been damaged by years of cuts. Our committee wanted to specify the damage, estimate how long it would continue under the Compact, and gauge alternatives. We found that there are realistic budgetary alternatives that would help us make the large contribution that the state expects and used to fund. I hope they are seriously considered.”

 

At its May 24 meeting, the Academic Council unanimously voted to receive the UPCB “Futures” report and forwarded it to the Assembly to encourage its broad distribution. It was presented to the Assembly of the Senate on June 14. UCPB hopes that the entire University community, as well as public policy makers and the public, will engage the issues that this report raises over the next year and that it will form the basis for more proactive solutions to the budgetary challenges facing UC.

- Brenda Foust