On June 27 Governor Jerry Brown vetoed language inserted by both houses that would have tied UC funding to admitting a minimum number of students (the same as last 2011). His veto message says as follows:
“Deletes provision 15 of item 6440-001-0001 from AB 1497, because the requirement contained in this provision that the University achieve an enrollment target of 209,977 resident full-time equivalent students creates unnecessary cost pressures on this item and is unnecessarily restrictive.”
This enrollment target, identical with what it was 2 years ago (c.210K), was missing from the Governor’s January budget and the May revise. The legislature put it back after the LAO notedits absence. Governor Brown’s veto means that, although Master Plan eligibility still exists on paper the state will no longer monitor UC’s compliance with Master Plan expectations. (In some previous years it required that fund be “reverted” to the State if UC did not meet its enrollment target.)
The Council of UC Faculty Association’s Executive Director, Eric Hays has been keeping track of how far the Governor has moved away from Master Plan requirements in the past three budgets. As you can see (below), Jerry Brown is MUCH worse than Schwarzenegger in holding UC to Master Plan targets. By several measures he is also worse in funding UC, which may be why he no will longer hold UC accountable Californians with non-resident students, each of whom yields a surplus revenue of c. $22K . Who will keep these accounts if the DOF and the Governor don’t?
UC remains free to enroll more the 210K resident students even if the state no longer expects it to do so. This year’s vetoed language contained no penalty if UC missed it’s target, so the Governor’s veto should probably be read as a purely symbolic repudiation of the Master Plan’s link between UC funding and if you want a sense of where things are headed, just listen to President Yudof crow: “[The] bill included California resident enrollment target language that is not consistent with funding levels provided from the State… In accordance with my request the Governor vetoed the budget provisions on the enrollment target ….” (Yudof to Regents, June 29, 2012)
On Friday, June 30, Eric Hays and Joe Kiskis (CUCFA’s VP for External Relations) attended a meeting at UCOP in which the likely outlines of the Governor’s compact with Yudof were revealed. Joe reports as follows:
In the event that Brown’s ballot initiative does pass, the governor has promised to dust off the multi-year (4-year? 5-year?) UC funding agreement that was apparently worked out between OP and the Governor during the spring and has since been on hold. The present version of this has a 6%/yr increase in state support for UC. That is the 4% previously rumored plus 2% for UCRP. In that eventuality, OP would likely ask the Regents for a 6%/yr tuition increase. (You read that right.) In the event that the ballot initiative does not pass, OP will probably ask the Regents for a tuition increase sufficient to make up for the $250M trigger, the lost $125M tuition buy out, and some other increasing fixed costs for a total increase of 20.3% to be effective Jan. 1, 2013. Yes, mid-year.
But with without any stated expectations for California UC will be free to replace in-state students with non-residents, thereby reducing the budgetary quality of education at campuses that continue to honor the Master Plan. (See https://calitics.com/diary/… )
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Here is relevant language from the last three state budgets as compiled by Eric Hays:
2010-11 (Schwarzenegger’s last): “The Legislature expects the University of California to enroll a total of 209,977 statesupported FTES during the 2010-11 academic year. This enrollment target does not include nonresident students and students enrolled in nonstate-supported summer programs.
The University of California shall report to the Legislature by March 15, 2011, on whether it has met the 2010-11 academic year enrollment goal. For purposes of this provision, enrollment totals shall only include state-supported students. If the University of California does not meet its total state supported enrollment goal by at least 512 FTES, the Director of Finance shall revert to the General Fund by April 1, 2011, the total amount of enrollment funding associated with the total share of the enrollment goal that was not met.” (page 604-605 of
http://www.documents.dgs.ca.go…
2011-12 (Brown’s first): “The Director of Finance shall not [emphasis added] revert state funds appropriated to the University of California for the 2011-12 fiscal year pursuant to subdivision (c) of Section 59 of Chapter 7 of the Statutes of 2011 even if the university does not meet its total state-supported enrollment goal.” (page 602 of
http://www.documents.dgs.ca.go…
2012-13 (VETOED): “The Legislature expects the University of California to enroll a total of 209,977 state-support-ed full time equivalent students during the 2012-13 academic year. This enrollment target does not include nonresident students and students enrolled in nonstate supported summer programs. The University of California shall report to the Legislature by May 1, 2013, on whether it has met the 2012-13 academic year enrollment goal.”