Vice Chancellor’s Corner
Vice Chancellor Student Affairs, Manuel N. Gómez, Ph.D.
We are all looking forward to the warm weather of spring, but not necessarily to the spring fever which many students will suffer in the coming months – and hopefully not too close to midterms and finals. Even though Southern California does not fully experience the four seasons, there is still a lighter feeling around campus during spring quarter, which probably has as much to do with the end of the school year as it does with the weather.
This spring though, there is a cloud over the campus and the state. It is the massive budgetary crisis which amounts to more than $100 million in cuts across the University of California system (UC). These cuts arrive on top of a 40% reduction in per-student state funding UC has been absorbing since 1990, making our two year shortfall almost $450 million.
For most of us, these numbers are so large it is difficult to put them into a meaningful context, especially given the national and states’ economies. For UCI, these cuts mean that for the first time in our history, freshmen enrollments will be reduced to the point where we will turn away many more eligible and deserving students in fall 2009. We will see fee increases. Cuts have been and will continue to be made on the administrative side, as we rightly remain focused on maintaining the highest quality of education possible. Yet it is getting more and more difficult to absorb these massive budgetary reductions.
These cuts have a negative multiplying effect on our economic health. The University of California sends three dollars back into the state economy for every one state-invested dollar. California’s productivity is dependent on the state’s investment in higher education.
We have lost sight of our children&rsauo;s future. For the last decade, California&rsauo;s prison cost has outpaced higher education. Prison spending is predicted to increase at almost twice the rate of all higher education spending over the next five years. “California is on the wrong track heading in the wrong direction … Our prisons are overflowing and yet we are turning away students at our universities,” warned California Assembly Majority Leader Alberto Torrico. An article in the California Chronicle pointed out that “A recent study by the Public Policy Institute of California states that California’s need for college educated workers is outpacing the state’s ability to produce them, and that gap is expected to widen in the future.” Torrico has proposed a bill, AB656, to secure more funding for all of California higher education – community colleges, California State Universities and UCs.
The importance of education as a public good has declined. Our last big investment in education occurred in the middle of the 20th century, starting at the end of WWII. The GI Bill of 1944 literally changed the economic and educational landscape of the nation. Not only was the GI Bill’s invitation to higher education for veterans a critical factor in the emergence of a middle class, it also substantially diversified higher education. In our current time of crisis, we must be similarly bold if we are to rescue higher education from decline. This slide has multiple effects on society and it is the inverse of how California has successfully built our economic and workforce strength.
I realize that this is a much more serious column than I usually write, but these are serious times. We are in trouble. While education may seem like a luxury during these times, the evidence is overwhelming that it is vital for immediate and long-term economic, social, and political stability.
So thank you for your continued support of UCI. Public support is critical to our well-being, and hopefully you can help us convince our political leaders of how crucial it is to make education a priority for California’s and our children’s future.
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