University of California

How UC-Berkeley Can Dig Out of Financial Hole

October 6, 2016 By Michael Poliakoff 1 Comment

Desperate times call for desperate measures. So it was in June, when the University of California-Berkeley created Ideaction, a website for friends of Cal to pitch their money-raising ideas for the university. Suggestions have rolled in: charge for valet parking, host furniture sales, repurpose Memorial Stadium for clubbing, and so on. These submissions would be amusing if not for the fact that Berkeley and the UC system face a larger problem, which no amount of parking transactions or furniture sales can fix.

The University of California system has long faced financial challenges and controversies, many of which are self-inflicted at the campus level. In 2015, for example, after the system received an increase in state funding, it promptly gave its highest-earning administrators a raise over student objections. The current situation at Berkeley is particularly acute: Berkeley has what outgoing chancellor Nicholas Dirks described as a “substantial and growing” $150 million deficit, which imperils its long-term solvency and growth. Solving that budget crisis won’t be easy, given declining state funding, an in-state tuition freeze, and annual increases in merit pay and cost-of-living adjustments.

Instead of hunting for creative, untapped revenue sources or making piecemeal changes, Berkeley administrators need to turn inward and take a comprehensive look at their own spending choices. How did the situation become so dire? Any sober analysis of the institution’s budgeting makes the indulgences — particularly on administrative spending — immediately apparent.

Berkeley’s excesses start at the top: Chancellor Dirks, who recently announced his resignation, earns an annual salary of $532,226 — ten times the median American household income. The university spent more than $200,000 on his image consulting and more than $1 million on renovations to the chancellor’s University House, including almost $700,000 for a fence and $90,000 for new Persian rugs. Dirks himself came under investigation for allegedly misusing funds. Below him, Berkeley has lavished spending on full-time administrators, growing the ranks by 56 percent between 2005 and 2015, to a total of 1,281 people. There are now almost as many administrators at Berkeley as there are faculty — one for roughly every 21 undergraduates.

An analysis conducted by the American Council of Trustees and Alumni of publicly-available data found that between 2009 and 2014, Berkeley’s administrative spending grew faster than that of any other institution in the UC system, at a rate dramatically outpacing instructional spending growth. Both physical and human resources are squandered. As is true at nearly all UC campuses, tenured and tenure-track faculty generally teach a maximum of four courses per year, often fewer. Many classrooms sit empty, especially on Fridays and the whole of the summer. Berkeley’s renowned research reputation doesn’t preclude a modest increase — appropriately rewarded — in teaching responsibilities. Even one more course every other year would make a huge difference. That, and the full use of classroom and lab space, would open opportunities for deserving California students and bring a robust stream of new tuition dollars to the campus, without further taxing the public.

Research has shown that colleges and universities could save as much as 10 percent of their instructional costs simply by reorganizing curricula. Berkeley can follow the example of its Pac-12 colleague, Arizona State University. By consolidating related departments, ASU has already saved more than $13 million without eliminating any faculty positions. For example, it once had separate departments for biology, plant biology, microbiology, and molecular and cellular biology; today, it has a truly interdisciplinary School of Life Sciences. Berkeley is ripe for similar innovation.

A $150 million deficit is daunting but not insurmountable, though it requires changes that may be uncomfortable. The cost of inaction as budget shortfalls loom would be far more harmful, especially at a time when overstretched students, families, and taxpayers have already seen their tuition bills rise by more than 30 percent over a five-year period. UC–Berkeley is a remarkable institution with more than 480,000 living alumni, but to preserve its tradition of academic excellence, university and system leaders must finally address long-festering financial problems. Its challenge now is to become a model for academic excellence and management responsibility.

Dr. Michael Poliakoff is president of the American Council of Trustees and Alumni.

This piece was originally published by City Journal Online.

Filed Under: Top Stories Tagged With: Nicholas Dirks, UC Berkeley, UC System, University of California

California legislators continue to push for UC Davis’s chancellor’s resignation

April 16, 2016 By CPR Editors 5 Comments

Two state lawmakers took to Twitter on Thursday and joined the growing chorus of Democratic legislators who are calling for the resignation of UC Davis Chancellor Linda P.B. Katehi after a series of unflattering stories by The Sacramento Bee.

On Wednesday, The Sacramento Bee reported that the university paid consultants at least $175,000 to scrub the Internet of negative postings about thepepper-spraying of students in 2011, in an effort to improve the school’s and the chancellor’s reputations.

The Bee also reported that between 2009 and 2015, the school’s strategic communications budget increased from $2.93 million to $5.47 million.

In response, Democratic Assemblymembers Freddie Rodriguez of Pomona and Mike Gatto of Los Angeles took to Twitter to condemn Katehi and demand her resignation.

Other incidents

In March, it was reported that Katehi, who receives $424,360 annually as chancellor, earned an additional $420,000 between 2012 and 2014 as a board member for textbook publisher John Wiley & Sons.

Katehi had also came under fire in March for violating University of California policy by accepting a $70,000 per-year seat on the board of DeVry, a for-profit university.

Katehi has since stepped down from DeVry board and pledged $200,000 in John Wiley & Sons stock to a scholarship fund. And she apologized.

But those actions weren’t enough and Democratic Assemblymembers Luis Alejo of Watsonville, Lorena Gonzalez of San Diego, Kevin McCarty of Sacramento and Evan Low of Campbell had called for her resignation, who Gatto and Rodriguez have now joined.

In Katehi’s defense

UC Davis spokesperson Dana Topousis would not say whether Katehi intended to step down (which likely means the answer is “no”). In a statement responding to only the most recent article from The Sacramento Bee, Topousis defended the overall cost of communications.

Here is the entire statement:

“Communicating the value of UC Davis is an essential element of our campus’s education, research, and larger public service mission. Increased investment in social media and communications strategy has heightened the profile of the university to good effect.

“As part of this overall communications strategy, it is important that the excellent work underway at UC Davis with respect to educating the next generation of students, pursuing groundbreaking research, and providing important services to the State is not lost during a campus crisis, including the crisis that ensued following the extremely regrettable incident when police pepper-sprayed student protesters in 2011. Communication efforts during this time were part of the campus’s strategic communication strategy. In fact, one of the main objectives during this time was to train staff on how to effectively use digital media to improve engagement with our stakeholders.

“Communicating the value of UC Davis is among the many reasons why our campus was able to increase its endowment to $1 billion last year, garner more than $700 million in research grants, and attract the highest caliber of students and faculty from around the country, with a record number of student applications this year.

“Most of the growth in the communications budget is tied to raising the visibility of our College of Agricultural and Environmental Sciences and the School of Veterinary Medicine, both rated the best in the nation.

Originally published by CalWatchdog.com

Filed Under: Top Stories Tagged With: California legislature, UC System, University of California

UC System Pushes Back Against Anti-Israel Movement

March 21, 2016 By Chris Reed 4 Comments

The BDS (Boycott, Divest, Sanctions) movement has been gaining momentum at American colleges in recent years with its message that Israel’s policies toward Palestinians amount to apartheid. According to the last annual report issued by the Israel on Campus Coalition, in the 2014-15 school year, there were 1,630 anti-Israel events at 181 colleges and universities in the United States. The main group behind the BDS movement — the Students for Justice in Palestine — grew by a third in terms of campus chapters and now has a presence at 150 schools.

But the University of California may slow that momentum. At a Board of Regents meeting Tuesday in San Francisco, a proposal meant to curb harassment of Jewish students at UC’s 10 campuses was unveiled. It declares “anti-Semitism, anti-Zionism and other forms of discrimination have no place at the University of California” and that university officials must “challenge speech and action reflecting bias, stereotypes, and/or intolerance.”

This is significantly stronger language than a previous proposal unveiled last year — and quickly rejected — that was more generally worded without a specific reference to anti-Zionism. UC regents are expected to vote on the language at their meeting next Wednesday in San Francisco.

But that vote will only come after they hear sharp protests from students and faculty who see this policy as damaging their speech rights and exonerating Israeli for its treatment of Palestinians.

Professor: Criticizing Israel not equal to bigotry

UC Berkeley literature professor Judith Butler told the Los Angeles Times that the language of the policy allowed for arbitrary definitions of what is unacceptable speech:

[She] questioned who would define that term or decide what crossed the line into discriminatory speech.

And although the statement provides no sanctions, calling on university leaders to “challenge” bias, Butler wondered whether those singled out as criticizing Zionism would be denied faculty research funds, promotions or other benefits.

“To include anti-Zionism as an instance of intolerance and bigotry is actually to suppress a set of political beliefs that we actually need to hear,” she said. “It saddens me and strikes at the heart of the task of the university.”

UCLA student Eitan Peled, a member of the liberal Jewish Voice for Peace group, blasted the proposal in an interview with the Associated Press. “As a student who considers my work advocating for Palestinian human rights as an expression of my Jewish values, I am surprised to see that criticism of a modern nation-state that regularly violates international law is so centered in a report against intolerance,” he told AP. “Debate over Zionism and the abusive policies of the state of Israel absolutely should be debated vigorously, not silenced by accusations of discrimination.”

Ex-UC president: ‘Microaggression’ against Jews common

Meanwhile, former University of California President Mark Yudof is also speaking out about the BDS movement and the treatment of Jewish students at some universities. He’s joined the advisory board of the Academic Engagement Network, which seeks to “bring together faculty members and administrators to address issues related to Israel.” Its members include Lawrence Summers, the former treasury secretary and Harvard president.

In a December essay published by Inside Higher Education, Yudof depicted the BDS movement as trying to shut down discussion of issues involving Israel while linking Zionism to other issues, including police violence toward African Americans. “In age of exquisite sensitivity on some campuses to microaggression, or language that subtly offends underrepresented groups, the ironic toleration of microaggression against Jews often goes unnoted,” he wrote.

It was while Yudof was UC president that the UC system suffered perhaps its most notorious display of anti-Israeli sentiment. Eleven UC Irvine and UC Riverside students were arrested in February 2010 after they interrupted a speech at UC Irvine by Israeli Ambassador Michael Oren and refused to let him complete his remarks. The incident triggered vast reaction.

Originally published by CalWatchdog.com

Filed Under: Top Stories Tagged With: BDS Movement, Israel, Jews, Mark Yudof, Palestine, UC System, University of California

CA Student Debt “Crisis” Attracting Varying Attention

November 18, 2015 By James Poulos 5 Comments

While California students mustered to lead a nationwide movement for college debt relief, policymakers and innovators grappled with the issue in ways of their own.

Students in the UC system — particularly the Berkeley campus — have taken a central role in pushing the co-called Million Student March. Protest organizers have announced a sweeping agenda including “a $15 minimum wage for student employees on college campuses, free tuition at public universities, and the abolition of student debt,” according to Time. “The Million Student March was an idea that started with a remark made by U.S. Senator Bernie Sanders, stating elected officials wouldn’t care about supporting higher education until a million students were out marching,” as UCSA President Kevin Sabo told the Daily Californian.

An uncertain path

The latest elements of student debt policy emanating from Washington have been a mixed bag. The new revisions to the federal Pay As You Earn program “will let all borrowers with federal direct student loans who are not in default cap their monthly payments at 10 percent of discretionary income, no matter when they borrowed or their debt-to-income ratio,” as the San Francisco Chronicle reported.

Meanwhile, a twist in federal robocall law has raised the specter of heightened fraud risks for targeted students. “Under the new provision, robocalls could only be directed at people with student loans backed by the federal government,” noted KOMO Channel 4 News. “For many, that’s just one more opportunity for scammers and deceptive marketers to expand their operations. State and federal regulators already have their hands full with illegal companies that make unsolicited calls claiming they can help consumers consolidate student loan debt or get loan modifications for a large and illegal up-front free.”

Tuition politics

Californians have actually fared better than others as the debt crisis continues its upward spiral. “Students graduating from California colleges had just $21,382 in loans, fourth-lowest among the states,” the Institute for College Access and Success noted in its tenth annual report on student debt, according to the Chronicle.

“The state’s Cal Grant program pays up to the full cost of systemwide tuition and fees at University of California and California State University campuses, and up to a certain dollar amount ($9,084 in 2014-15) at qualifying private colleges. These grants, available to California residents from low- and moderate-income families, have helped defray soaring tuition.”

ICAS research director Debbie Cochrane told the Chronicle that “tuition at UC and CSU campuses rose 128 percent, but the average debt for public-college graduates rose only 43 percent” over the past 10 years.

But some Golden State politicos have sought to frame state education as a crisis in need of broad new government support. Along with UC Regent Eloy Ortiz, Lt. Gov. Gavin Newsom announced his support for an initiative called California College Promise, “a bold effort to offer two tuition-free years of community college for responsible students,” as they argued in the San Jose Mercury News. “This promise is true to California’s tradition of advancing our educational system at critical junctures to present future generations with better opportunities to succeed,” they wrote.

Disrupting debt

At the same time, student debt has attracted the attention of California’s startup scene. One new highly selective startup school, Make School, offers a two-year curriculum in tech — “billed as ‘debt-free education,’” as the Mercury News reported. “Ashu Desai, the 23-year-old cofounder of Make School, said widespread concerns about student debt and abuses in the for-profit college sector influenced his decision not to charge tuition up front. Instead, the school charges a percentage of graduates’ wages — or, alternatively, an investment in their startup — instead of a flat fee.”

Originally published by CalWatchdog.com

Filed Under: Top Stories Tagged With: Cal Grant, College, Gavin Newsom, student loans, UC System, University, University of California

CA Cities Engage in Minimum Wage Arms Race

August 22, 2015 By James Poulos 5 Comments

Forging ahead with plans to take minimum wages to new highs, California’s San Francisco Bay Area has touched off tit-for-tat increases, deepening fears that the region’s high cost of living has become a business-killer.

A growing dilemma

“Berkeley’s City Council approved a hike in June 2014 that will lift the minimum wage to $12.53 by next year,” the Los Angeles Times noted. “In November, voters in San Francisco and Oakland overwhelmingly approved increases, with San Francisco on track to hit $15 before Seattle does. Oakland went up to $12.25 this year.” Then, last month, nearby Emeryville surpassed Berkeley and Oakland with a $14.44 wage; “Berkeley sent its labor commission back to the drawing board. The council next month is expected to take up a proposal that would add paid sick days, extend wage hikes until they hit $19 in 2020 and then add cost-of-living increases in perpetuity.”

The upshot for businesses has been mixed at best: although some employers have crafted clever strategies for adding more value for customers, others have worried the path is unsustainable. “The necessity of paying people a living wage in the Bay Area is clear, so it’s hard to argue against it, and it’s something I’m really proud to be able to try doing,” one pizzeria owner told the Times. “At the same time, I’m terrified of going out of business after 18 years.”

As big wage increases have been passed into law across California, business interests haven’t always been the only ones to pump the brakes. In Los Angeles, where the city minimum is a $15 wage, critics of the increases howled when labor advocates wound up asking for a waiver on the eve of its passage. “The exemption was left out of the law’s final version after criticism from the local chamber of commerce and business groups,” noted the Wall Street Journal. “But similar exemptions are included in at least three other Los Angeles laws, including a minimum wage for hotel workers approved last year.”

Recalibrating business

Although California has led the country in grappling with stagnant wages and rising costs of living, the turn toward higher minimum wages has touched off broad debates across the country. Hospitality businesses such as the hotel industry have faced a particular challenge as wages have climbed upward. For years, bar and restaurant groups have lobbied policymakers to think twice, warning that dramatically hiking wages would undermine their business models, which politicians and analysts have often built into their assumptions about jobs and economic health.

“The problem with the minimum-wage offensive is that it throws the accounting of the restaurant industry totally upside down,” as Harold Miller, a restaurant consultant currently serving as vice president for franchise development at Persona Pizzeria, told the Chicago Tribune.

In tech-forward areas with high costs of living and high rents, the threat to the hospitality business model has accelerated the shift toward increased automation and decreased employment rolls.

Stalling statewide

Some California employers have set out to recalibrate their work forces, hoping that a shift to more temporary workers could blunt the economic impact of wage increases. But the political impact of such a shift has also become a problem. Faced with criticism over differential treatment between contract and career employees, the University of California system offered a $15 “minimum wage” set to apply to thousands of contract workers on a private, not public, payroll.

UC unions were still left cold. “Private contract firms will still make as much as $10 an hour or more in profit off the labor of workers being denied the same wages as UC workers doing the same jobs,” wrote the president of the system’s largest employee union in the San Francisco Chronicle. “UC could choose to send a different message by supporting SB376,” she argued, “legislation that would guarantee the employees of UC contractors equal pay as career employees doing the same work.” That bill was authored this spring by state Sen. Ricardo Lara, D-Bell Gardens.

But the latest Golden State bellwether, a bill creating a statewide $13 wage introduced by state Sen. Mark Leno, D-San Francisco, could signal that the minimum wage wave may be cresting. As the Sacramento Business Journal observed, Leno’s effort “moved farther than it did last year, but the bill’s fate is far from assured.” Although Gov. Jerry Brown has “proposed to tackle income inequality this year through an earned income tax credit,” he has declined to comment on the push for a $13 wage — letting a skeptical Department of Finance speak for him.

Filed Under: Top Stories Tagged With: Bay Area, Jerry Brown, Los Angeles, Minimum Wage, oakland, san francisco, University of California

California University Will Ban Soda Sales On Campus

June 17, 2015 By Blake Neff 7 Comments

The University of California-San Francisco is halting the sale of soda and other sugary drinks on campus due to health concerns.

Under the new policy, which was decided upon in May and will be implemented in July, campus vendors will be blocked from selling all drinks with added sugar calories to the school’s 4,600 students. That means no Coca-Cola, no Dr. Pepper, and no fruit punch. Diet sodas and 100 percent juice drinks will still be tolerated, and students will be allowed to bring sugary drinks on campus if they buy them elsewhere.

“The average American consumes nearly three times the recommended amount of added sugar every day,” UCSF professor Laura Schmidt said in the school’s initial announcement. “The most common single source is sugar-sweetened beverages.”

While UCSF characterizes the policy as a voluntary “strategy” for its vendors, the vendors themselves don’t agree. Kenneth Guzman, who operates an on-campus restaurant, told Inside Higher Ed that he “didn’t really have a choice” about dumping soda.

“I felt like it was a little too rash, they are too harsh,” Guzman said. “We could’ve just educated our customers on how to choose healthier alternatives and not punish them, taking away what they love.”

Another food vendor on campus said he thought it was silly for the school to ban sugared drinks but not diet sodas.

“Artificial sugars are worse than sugar itself,” said Peasant Pie operator Ali Keshavarz. “If my kid had a choice between a sugar soda and a diet soda, I’d want them to have the sugar soda, I know that for a fact.”

The new policy makes UCSF the first university in the country to put such a broad limit on sugar sales, and comes just two years after the campus banned all tobacco products.

The decision may be slightly more justified at UCSF than at other colleges, as the school is focused solely on graduate education in health sciences.

The move is also premised on research the school itself has conducted. A 2012 article in Nature by three UCSF researchers argued the health consequences of added sugars were so severe they deserved to be regulated in a manner similar to alcohol.

“Passive smoking and drink-driving fatalities provided strong arguments for tobacco and alcohol control,” the authors say in the article. “The long-term economic, health-care and human costs of metabolic syndrome place sugar overconsumption in the same category. The United States spends $65 billion in lost productivity and $150 billion on health-care resources annually for morbidities associated with metabolic syndrome.” Metabolic disorders related to sugar, the authors say, consume 75 percent of U.S. health spending.

Since “individually focused approaches” such as education aren’t working, the authors say, what is needed are “supply-side” restrictions such as higher taxes, age restrictions, and banning sales at schools.

Leeanne Jensen, the school’s wellness coordinator, told Inside Higher Ed the ban meant UCSF was “living our mission” by adopting its own advice on health. She also said the ban was focused on sugary drinks because their effect on health was particularly bad. High-sugar foods like cookies are more satiating than soda, she said, while the research on diet sodas is not as clear regarding whether they are unhealthy or not.

Originally published by the Daily Caller News Foundation

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Filed Under: Top Stories Tagged With: Health, regulation, san francisco, Soda, UCSF, University of California