The Trail from Riverside to Oregon

Earlier posts on this blog have noted an idea developed by some UC-Riverside students to make tuition free in exchange for a percentage of future student earnings.  (Actually, the idea has been around for a long time.)  In any event, although UCOP is supposedly studying the proposal, it seems to have found its way to Oregon where it is being considered in the legislature.  From Inside Higher Ed today: 

...The Oregon plan is similar to, and has its origins in, one proposed by students at the University of California at [sic] Riverside that made headlines last year. Since last winter, a group of University of California students have been in talks with the system administration to address some of the logistical challenges raised by the plan, but there has been little public movement.  In contrast, the Oregon plan moved quickly from being an idea to getting legislative approval. Chris LoCascio, one of the students involved in the UC effort, said he and his team worked with the Economic Opportunity Institute, a liberal think tank in Seattle, to help develop the plan. The institute then proposed a version of the plan for Washington...

Full article at http://www.insidehighered.com/news/2013/07/09/oregon-plan-would-shift-tuition-payment-after-graduation

Want a Riverside Med School? Legislature Says (Commands?) Do It Yourself

There has been ongoing agitation from UC-Riverside and UC for the state to put up money for a med school.  As bits and pieces about the state budget leak out, it appears that the legislature has not provided extra money but instead has told UC to take it out of its general allocation.  Apparently, the legislature doesn't view this matter as a suggestion; more of a command.

From the Riverside Press-Enterprise:
The Legislature’s budget conference committee late Monday altered the funding mix for a school of medicine at UC Riverside, eliminating a $15 million augmentation but directing the UC system to allocate money to the school from its budget. The compromise means the school will finally get the state money it has sought unsuccessfully since 2010. It effectively saves the state general fund $15 million. And most importantly, it has the support of the Brown administration, which did not include any money for the medical school in its January spending proposal or May revision...

Full story at http://blog.pe.com/2013/06/10/medical-school-no-new-money-but-uc-told-to-allocate/

Of course, the Regents and UCOP could assert their constitutional autonomy but the legislature might object:

The Never-Ending Story of the UC-Riverside Med School

UC-Riverside's quest for $15 million from the state budget - not supported by the governor - seems unending.  From the Desert Sun:

An Inland Empire lawmaker’s bill to secure $15 million in annual state funding for the UC Riverside School of Medicine cleared its first legislative hurdle Tuesday. AB 27, sponsored by Assemblyman Jose Medina, D-Riverside, was approved by the Assembly Higher Education Committee and is now bound for the Assembly Appropriations Committee...

Much of the school’s start-up funding has come from philanthropic and other non-state sources, though the county committed $20 million over the last two years.

Full story at http://www.mydesert.com/viewart/20130319/NEWS04/303190033/Committee-OKs-bill-UC-Riverside-School-Medicine-funding

Note: It's a long path from this step to an actual $15 million from the state.  The quest has gone on for a long time and it may continue for a long time.  A little music while we wait:

UC-Riverside Pushes Ahead With Med School

UC-Riverside pushes on with its med school despite lack of state support.  From the Desert Sun:

PALM DESERT — University of California, Riverside officials should know within two weeks whether the state will OK a land transfer critical to its new medical school’s presence in the Coachella Valley.  At issue is 11.5 acres along Frank Sinatra Drive, just east of UCR’s existing Palm Desert campus... The medical school plans to build an outpatient medical clinic there that can be used as a teaching facility for students and medical residents, Dean G. Richard Olds said...

Olds said there is no plan B should the state decline to release the land. “I guess we’ll have to build it somewhere else,” he said.  A rejection would stretch out the unclear timeline. If UCR does get control of the land, what happens and when it happens still rests largely with the state. The clinic could range in size from 10,000 square feet to about 40,000 square feet and cost $20 million to $60 million depending, in part, on how much the state is willing to commit. Olds said a newly elected state senator and representative from the Riverside area have just introduced bills to restore $15 million a year in state funding for the school, after Gov. Jerry Brown squashed state contributions for the project in order to cut costs...

Full story at http://www.mydesert.com/article/20130308/NEWS04/303080023

 

Hmm.  Frank Sinatra Drive.  I guess the dean wants to do it his way despite lack of state support:
 

Gov. Jerry Brown on Executive Pay at the University of California & Many Other Topics

At the University of California (UC) Regents meeting of Jan. 17, 2013, Regent Leslie Tang Schilling asked Gov. Brown not to protest about UC executive pay.  The state portion of executive pay can be capped, she seemed to agree, but the Regents should then be free to raise private donations for increments of pay above the state portion.  She argues that UC will need high-quality leadership and must be free to compete for talent.  She expresses skepticism about psychic income.

Brown responds at length with a learned discourse ranging from his one-time vow of Jesuit poverty to the history of higher education in California and more generally.  He resists the idea that he opposes high pay for “political” reasons.  He is uncertain about what terms such as “quality” mean in the context of research.  He questions rankings of educational institutions.  Brown also talks about his support for high-speed rail, the need for water infrastructure to avoid floods, and global warming.  Income inequality is a concern for the governor and California is big enough, he thinks, to resist that trend rather than endorse it.  Brown says we don’t really know where online higher education will lead but that we should go for it (anyway).  On the other hand, he is skeptical about the need for a new medical school at UC-Riverside.  He cites the two-decade holiday of contributions to the UC pension fund as showing that even smart people can make bad decisions.

As prior posts have noted, the problem with the governor's approach is that - while entertaining - it doesn't lead to more than regental seeming agreement.  No one wants to offend the governor.  The main challenger to the online education pushed by the governor is from a student regent.  But no process is being set in motion that would lead to something like a new Master Plan to deal with the challenges and issues about which the governor is concerned.  

You can hear Schilling and then Brown’s response below:

UC-Riverside Apparently Still Dogged by No Meds

We have produced prior posts from time to time on UC-Riverside's quest to get some state money to set up a new medical school.  Apparently, the governor's budget proposal that was released yesterday did not provide that money:

...State Sen. Richard Roth, D-Riverside, said he was “very disappointed not to see specific funding identified” for the medical school, where classes for the first group of 50 students are set to begin this fall.

...Local officials have sought state money for the medical school since 2008. In 2011, officials delayed the first freshman class because of the lack of state funding, and the school’s medical accreditation was in peril at one point. Last March, Brown said he wanted to hold off allocating state money for the school until California got its fiscal house in order. And although Brown bragged Thursday about the budget having a surplus for the first time in years – thanks to voters’ earlier acceptance of his Prop. 30 tax proposal – his spending plan did not specify any money for the medical school...

Full story from the Riverside Press-Enterprise at:
http://www.pe.com/local-news/politics/politics-headlines-index/20130110-california-budget-where-are-ucr-medical-school-funds.ece

Listen to Gov. Brown Say He is President of UC at Nov. 27, 2012 Special Regents Meeting

The Regents held a special meeting to approve the new UC-Berkeley Chancellor and the interim UC-Riverside Chancellor on Nov. 27, 2012.  You can hear that meeting at the link below.  Governor Brown , Lt. Governor Newsom, and one Regent (Zettel) voted against the pay package for the new Berkeley chancellor Nicholas Dirks which paid $50,000 in sslary more than the previous chancellor.  (The increment was from private funds.)  All three voted for the appointment but against the pay.

Brown's comments are particularly interesting and occur roughly between minute 5:50 and 10:50 on the recording.  He says that the state funding and tuition expectations of UC are "unacceptable."  There is an allusion to Joseph advising prudence to the Pharoah.  He talks about a need for more efficiency, modesty, and lower cost at UC.  At one point the governor said he was president of the university - which must have surprised Mark Yudof.

Yudof indicated later that one should not make too much of the governor's disagreement with the salary proposal and that on most matters he and the governor see eye to eye.  Their eyes may be close but they seem to be looking in different directions.

You can hear the recording of the full meeting below:

You can hear just the governor's remarks at the link below:

UPDATE: A couple of sources tell me that the governor is president of the regents (although not of the university).

Please Sir, Can I Have My Med School?

From the Riverside Press-Enterprise:

Only hours into the 2013-2014 session, a pair of new lawmakers from Riverside introduced a pair of virtually identical measures to annually appropriate $15 million to UC Riverside’s School of Medicine.  The bills are the first of their kind so early in a legislative year. Their authors, state Sen. Richard Roth, D-Riverside, and Assemblyman Jose Medina, D-Riverside, pledged to secure money for the medical school during their campaigns this year.

...University officials have tried since 2008 to secure ongoing state money for the school amid massive budget shortfalls. In 2011, officials postponed the school’s first freshman class because of the lack of state money, which at one point also jeopardized the medical school’s accreditation...  

UC officials are scheduled to meet with aides to Gov. Jerry Brown early next week to talk about budget issues, including the medical school, said Patrick Lenz, the university system’s vice president for budgets...

Riverside-area lawmakers, at that time Republicans, and UC officials, though, have come up empty the past two years in their attempts to get additional state money for the school. Those efforts came amid a partisan fight over Republicans' refusal to support Brown’s proposal to put higher taxes on the ballot...

Full story at http://www.pe.com/local-news/politics/jim-miller-headlines/20121206-legislature-bills-would-fund-ucr-medical-school.ece

When you're in need of your meds, it's so hard to wait:

Follow-Up on Today's Special Regents Meeting

 

We noted yesterday that there would be a special Regents meeting today to approve pay packages for the new chancellor of Berkeley and the new acting chancellor at Riverside. Also noted was the fact that yours truly could not record the live-stream of the meeting and so the posting of the audio would have to await our usual public documents request.  However, I am told there were three votes against the Berkeley salary of $486,800: the governor, the lieutenant governor, and Regent Zettel.  We will post updates.  And we again ask why the Regents' office, since it has recordings of the meetings, does not post an archive of them.

UPDATE: http://www.latimes.com/news/local/la-me-uc-pay-20121128,0,1435780.story

Special Regents Meeting Tomorrow

The Regents are having a special meeting tomorrow, apparently to approve pay packages for the new chancellor at Berkeley and the acting chancellor at Riverside.  Yours truly cannot record the meeting due to other commitments.  However, as usual, we will request the audio and post it when it becomes available.  The agenda is at http://regents.universityofcalifornia.edu/regmeet/nov27.html

New Berkeley chancellor bio at:
http://www.universityofcalifornia.edu/news/article/28634

New Riverside acting chancellor bio at:
http://www.universityofcalifornia.edu/news/article/28698

UC-R Students’ Tuition Plan: Media Coverage But Lack of UC Enthusiasm

UC administrator?  UC Regent?

Blog readers may recall that some UC-Riverside students came up with a proposal to have “free” tuition at UC in exchange for a tax on graduates’ future incomes.  This idea has actually been around for some time but more typically at the federal level, i.e., a program involving all universities. 

There are a variety of issues such as the lack of a cash flow immediately until the future graduates begin being taxed.  If such a plan were done only for one university system in one state, there are enforcement issues.  How would the tax be collected from graduates who moved out of state and didn’t pay California income tax?  Could there be federal cooperation?   

In short, the idea applied just to UC is not a simple proposal.  Nonetheless, the Regents claimed – when the Riverside proposal first surfaced – to be interested.  But at their September retreat when all sorts of unusual ideas were batted around (e.g., give the parking services to the pension fund), I don’t recall that the Riverside plan came up for discussion.

The Riverside Press-Enterprise has some coverage of the plan in its latest incarnation and says that UC has “participated” in looking at the plan but it does not seem have lent much support:

…Although UC officials have participated in those discussions, they say they have not been convinced that the plan is viable.  In March, the student group issued a revised proposal, addressing some of the initial questions surrounding the idea. The 5 percent that would come out of graduates’ paychecks would apply only to those making more than $30,000 annually, and it would be applied only to the first $200,000 in yearly income…

“Frankly, it doesn’t seem like a viable option for UC right now,” (UC spokesperson Steve) Montiel said. “It’s something we’ve looked at, but it’s hard to see how it could be done with a single university (system).” Montiel said if UC schools were the only ones offering such a pay model, they very well might be flooded by applicants from across the country, particularly those in lower-paying fields. He said officials also are concerned about the logistics of being able to collect from graduates. It would require the involvement of the federal government…

Full story at http://www.pe.com/local-news/riverside-county/riverside/riverside-headlines-index/20121121-riverside-uc-students-push-their-idea-to-do-away-with-tuition.ece

A video accompanies the story:

Wishlist budget adopted by Regents

As expected, the Regents adopted the budget - which the governor on Wednesday termed a wishlist - yesterday.  The value of adopting a wishlist budget which will not be funded as requested was debated on Wednesday but adopted by the Committee on Finance of the Regents.  We posted the audio of that meeting, including the governor's comments.

Yours truly was in transit yesterday and so could not record the Regents' live stream audio. We will, as usual, request the recording as a public document and post it when received. (And [sigh] again we ask why the Regents audios are not archived by their office.  Why only a live stream which vanishes?) 

The LA Times carries the story: Two UC campuses received important endorsements Thursday for long-stalled projects: a new medical school at Riverside and a major classroom building at Merced. The UC regents included a proposed $15 million to help run the medical school and $45 million for the Merced building in their 2013-14 budget request to the governor and Legislature. The regents said they were more optimistic than in the past about their chances since state tax revenues are improving...

Full article at http://www.latimes.com/health/la-me-1116-uc-regents-20121116,0,5719809.story

I suspect the attitude of the state will be that we give you X dollars and if you want to spend them on, say, a Riverside med school or a Merced building, go right ahead. However, the governor warned that the proposed budget in total, projected out into the future, assumed allocations from the state of a magnitude that would not be forthcoming.

Despite the warning, I suppose wishing can't hurt:

But wishing might not help, either.