Acountability Report to Regents: Data Source

At the July Regents meeting, there will be consideration of the "Accountability Report."  While this report tends to be a booster publication, it contains interesting information on budgets, enrollment, etc.  For example, the impact of the Great Recession and its budgetary aftermath can be seen on the chart above from the report.  Nonresident undergrads - who pay full tuition - were increased as a percent of total enrollees.  (Clicking on the chart will enlarge it and show more detail.)

The Accountability Report is at http://regents.universityofcalifornia.edu/regmeet/jul13/l1attach.pdf.

Follow Up on Affirmative Action

Yesterday, we posted an entry about Prop 209 admissions data in preparation for the U.S. Supreme Court's decision on affirmative action in university admissions.  Now that the decision is out, the media reports generally say it will have little effect.  Since California has Prop 209 restrictions in place already, it is assumed that there will be zero effect in California.  Your non-legal expert is unsure that zero is the right number.  As noted yesterday, the decision had the potential to affect private universities - due to their acceptance of federal funding - and public ones outside California.  Suppose it turns out that when the dust settles on this decision - a process that will apparently occur in lower courts - following affirmative action policies is made more difficult or in someway impeded in the privates and non-California publics.  In that event, the UC disadvantage in attempting to follow diversity policies under Prop 209 could be lessened.  If there are any legal types that would like to intone on this speculation, they are invited to do so.

The LA Times' version of the decision of the Supremes is at http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/nation/la-na-court-affirmative-action-20130625,0,3357283.story

It might be noted that two other cases decided by the Supremes and involving employment discrimination claims happened to occur at universities.  The decisions made such claims more difficult to pursue.  A summary and links can be found at:
http://www.insidehighered.com/quicktakes/2013/06/25/universities-play-role-2-supreme-court-employment-law-rulings

Prop 209 Data

Prop 209, approved by voters in 1996, banned affirmative action in university admissions and public contracting.  It followed an earlier move in 1995 by the Regents to ban affirmative action and, in fact, made their decision redundant.  (They later revoked the decision, an action that had no effect once Prop 209 was enacted.)  The Contra Costa Times has a retrospective article on the subject because of the pending U.S. Supreme Court decision on affirmative action that could extend to private as well as public universities since the former accept federal funding.  The chart above comes from that article and focuses on admission rates at UC-Berkeley.

The article is at http://www.contracostatimes.com/breaking-news/ci_23516741/affirmative-action-ban-at-uc-15-years-later

 

You can see a video of the Regents’ action at the link below:

California Assembly Speaker John Pérez on the UC Budget, Tuition, Access, and Other Matters

At the January 17, 2013 UC Regents meeting John Pérez spoke about the state budget and other issues. Pérez is an ex officio regent.  A summary follows and there is a link to an audio of his remarks at the bottom of this post:

Summary: UC is unrealistic about increased funding from the state, backfilling of past budget cuts, or predictability for the university.  It is not addressing predictability for students.  UC was good at protecting the neediest students but not so good at protecting the middle class.  There are legislative concerns about graduate and professional school students, not just undergrads.  If UC raises graduate and professional school tuition, the legislature won't be receptive and will instead ask questions about executive pay.  There should be "no additional harm" to students. Education, including higher ed, is benefiting from Prop 30 under the governor's budget, unlike other programs.  The legislature ultimately enacts the budget; what the governor issued was a budget proposal.

Pérez spoke about the unfunded liability in the UC pension system.  He seemed unclear about the actual history of the pension contribution "holiday."  The story is more nuanced than he implied.  The holiday began because UC's pension was seen as overfunded and the state had a budget crisis (in the early 1990s).  That is, the decision to suspend contributions was based on the notion that UC could not ask a legislature strapped for cash for contributions to an overfunded pension.  Later, the stock market boomed as part of the more specific dot-com boom and the pension became more overfunded despite the lack of contributions.  So, again, there was a decision that even though the state budget crisis had ended, UC could not go the legislature and ask for contributions to an overfunded pension.  In short, there was a political/legislative element to the pension holiday; it was not just some internal decision isolated within UC.

It might also be noted that Pérez did not discuss research in contrast with the governor (who questioned what research quality was, but at least thought research was worth mentioning). 

An audio of Pérez's remarks is below: