California universities, colleges face deep cuts Higher education

Governor Jerry Brown introduces his January budget proposal on Monday morning, January 10, 2011, at the state capitol in Sacramento, Calif.Governor Jerry Brown introduces his January budget proposal on Monday morning, January 10, 2011, at the state capitol in Sacramento, Calif. less Governor Jerry Brown introduces his January budget proposal on Monday morning, January 10, 2011, at the state capitol in Sacramento, Calif.Governor Jerry Brown introduces his January budget proposal on Monday ... more Photo: Liz Hafalia, The Chronicle Photo: Liz Hafalia, The Chronicle Image 1 of / 1 Caption Close California universities, colleges face deep cuts 1 / 1 Back to Gallery

Hundreds of thousands of students are likely to be turned away from California State University and the community colleges next year, while the University of California won't rule out raising tuition - again.

"This is a sad day for California," UC President Mark Yudof said, summing up the reaction to Gov. Jerry Brown's proposal Monday to cut $500 million each from the budgets of UC and CSU, and an additional $400 million from the state's community college system.

The cuts, meant to help close the state's $25 billion budget gap, assume voters will agree to extend several taxes that raise $10 billion a year for the state. If not, cuts to higher education could go deeper.

Brown's proposed 2011-12 budget gives UC - for the first time - less money from the state than it gets from student tuition: $2.6 billion versus $2.8 billion.

Crossing a threshold

To many, that represents the privatization of the nation's premier public university system - a rallying cry of student protesters.

"The crossing of this threshold ... should be profoundly disturbing to all Californians," Yudof said Monday.

Student regent Jesse Cheng called it a "dangerous crossroads" for California to shift primary support of UC from a public to a private source - particularly onto middle-class students whose income is too high for public grants but too low for UC's rising price tag.

In November, the UC regents approved an 8 percent tuition increase, which Cheng opposed. Tuition will be $11,124 next fall, while the full cost to attend will top $30,000.

"It's terrible," said Claudia Magaña, president of the UC Students Association, who has seen courses cut and library hours reduced at UC Santa Cruz, where she majors in politics and Latin American studies.

Yudof said he'll ask the 10 UC chancellors to recommend even more budget cuts at each campus within six weeks, although a final 2011-12 budget is months away. He said his central office in Oakland won't be spared.

Not the time for cuts

He joined CSU Chancellor Charles Reed and community college Chancellor Jack Scott to warn that the total proposed cut of $1.4 billion to higher education would actually undermine the state's effort to get back in good financial shape.

"Now is not the time to shrink public higher education, but to grow it," said the three, calling the three higher education systems "the economic engines of the state."

"The road to recovery from this recession and prosperity far beyond it runs straight through our many campuses," they said.

Brown's budget includes a proposal to raise community college fees to $36 per course unit, from $26.

That would generate $110 million - enough to support an additional 50,000 students - but overall budget cuts would still close the doors for up to 350,000 students at California's 110 community colleges if the cuts are approved, Scott said, noting that even small increases in the number of graduates translate into billions more in tax revenue for the state's economy.

City College of San Francisco expects to raise class size and ask the city to help out as it has done with the public schools, said John Rizzo, acting president of the Board of Trustees.

"We're also considering going to the ballot for a parcel tax," Rizzo said.

At UC and CSU, a $1 billion reduction would bring the universities back to about the same level of state funding each received in 1999: nearly $2.6 billion for UC, and about $2.3 billion for CSU.

But both systems educate tens of thousands more students today than they did a dozen years ago.

CSU, for example, enrolls 70,000 more students today than in 1999, Reed said. Yet budget cuts have forced its 23 campuses to turn away 40,000 students over the last two years.

The universities were spared cuts in the current budget approved in October, so CSU has been adding students for spring 2011. But it's proved a short-lived reprieve from the cuts.

"We will not be able to admit as many students as we had been planning for this fall," Reed said.