In order to further the lively discussion of funding of the California College and University system I have posted the exact text of Senate Bill 969 which was INTRODUCED by California State Senator Dean Florez on February 5, 2010.

The bill is to be known as: The California College and University Fee Stabilization Act of 2010



Florez, a former UCLA Student Body President and Candidate for California Lt. Governor, by introduction of this bill, provides for the stabilization of fees and allows those paying for an eduction in the CA College and University system some reasonable idea of what the tuition/fees for a four year degree will cost–The Cost The First Year Remains The Same Through Ones Senior Year.

It should be pointed out to those reading the text of this bill, or any bill, proposed legislation goes through a process in which modifications are proposed and/or made to a bill, and in a prefect world, make the proposed law “better.” Senator Florez, by introducing the bill has started the process in which interested/effected parties provide input to CA State Legislators to, as necessary, strengthen the bill and let them know of YOUR SUPPORT of the goal of the Legislation introduced. It is more common than not that a bill of any size or significance does not becomes law with the exact language and provisions that are present when a bill is introduced.

Another way of saying this is: Former UCLA Student Body President Florez has “opened the door for the public to provide input and support.” Just getting a bill introduced is often the biggest hurdle to new laws! Senator Florez has “thrown the ball” and it is up to the public to “catch the ball and run with it.” The introduction of the California College and University Fee Stabilization Act of 2010 is OUR TIME, OUR OPPORTUNITY. We have the opportunity to, to paraphrase President Obama: BE THE CHANGE WE ARE LOOKING FOR WHEN IT COMES TO HIGHER EDUCATION COSTS.

BILL NUMBER: SB 969 INTRODUCED

BILL TEXT

INTRODUCED BY   Senator Florez

  (Principal coauthor: Senator Price)

                       FEBRUARY 5, 2010

  An act to add Chapter 3.5 (commencing with Section 66150) to Part

40 of Division 5 of Title 3 of the Education Code, relating to public

postsecondary education.

LEGISLATIVE COUNSEL’S DIGEST

  SB 969, as introduced, Florez. Public postsecondary education:

California College and University Fee Stabilization Act of 2010.

  Existing law, known as the Donahoe Higher Education Act, provides

for a public postsecondary education system in this state. The 3

segments of the public postsecondary education system are the

University of California, which is administered by the Regents of the

University of California, the California State University, which is

administered by the Trustees of the California State University, and

the California Community Colleges, which are administered by the

Board of Governors of the California Community Colleges and the

community college district governing boards. The provisions of the

Donahoe Higher Education Act apply to the University of California

only to the extent that the Regents of the University of California

act by resolution to make them applicable.

  Existing law authorizes the Trustees of the California State

University to require that fees, among other charges, be paid by

students at that institution. Existing law requires the governing

board of each community college district to charge each student a fee

of $26 per unit per semester, effective with the fall term of the

2009-10 academic year. Existing provisions of the California

Constitution require the Regents of the University of California to

have all powers necessary or convenient for the effective

administration of the university.

  This bill would enact the California College and University Fee

Stabilization Act of 2010, which would place limits on increases in

mandatory systemwide fees, as defined, charged to students enrolled

in the 3 segments of public postsecondary education. The bill would

limit mandatory systemwide fees that are charged to resident

undergraduate students enrolled in the University of California, the

California State University, or the California Community Colleges to

a specified amount, based on the average total cost of education, as

defined, at the respective segment. The bill would prohibit each of

the 3 segments from charging a resident undergraduate student who

commences enrollment in an undergraduate degree program at that

segment for the fall term of the 2011-12 academic year, or any

academic term thereafter, mandatory systemwide fees in an amount that

is greater than the amount of the fees in effect at the time the

student commenced enrollment in the undergraduate degree program. The

bill would prohibit mandatory systemwide fees charged to resident

undergraduate students enrolled in the University of California and

the California State University from being increased, in any academic

year, by an amount exceeding 5% of the fees charged for the

immediately preceding academic year. With respect to the per unit per

semester fees that community college districts are required to

charge to students enrolled in the California Community Colleges, the

bill would declare legislative intent that those fees not be

increased by an amount exceeding 5% of the fees charged for the

immediately preceding academic year. The bill would prohibit an

increase in mandatory systemwide fees charged to resident

undergraduate students enrolled in any of the 3 segments that is

adopted on or after January 1, 2011, from becoming effective before 6

months have elapsed after the date on which fee increase is adopted.

  The bill would provide that the act does not apply to the

University of California, except to the extent that the Regents of

the University of California adopt a resolution making it applicable.

The bill would request the regents to adopt policies that are

consistent with the act.

  Vote: majority. Appropriation: no. Fiscal committee: yes.

State-mandated local program: no.

THE PEOPLE OF THE STATE OF CALIFORNIA DO ENACT AS FOLLOWS:

 SECTION 1.  Chapter 3.5 (commencing with Section 66150) is added to

Part 40 of Division 5 of Title 3 of the Education Code, to read:

     CHAPTER 3.5.  STUDENT FEES

  66150.  This chapter shall be known, and may be cited, as the

California College and University Fee Stabilization Act of 2010.

  66151.  As used in this chapter, the following terms have the

following meanings:

  (a) (1) “Average total cost of education” means the amount

calculated by dividing the total cost of education for the University

of California, the California State University, or the California

Community Colleges, whichever is applicable, by the total number of

full-time equivalent students enrolled at that segment.

  (2) For purposes of paragraph (1), “total cost of education” means

the following with respect to each of the following segments of

public postsecondary education:

  (A) For the University of California and the California State

University, the sum of appropriations and projected revenues from all

of the following:

  (i) The General Fund.

  (ii) Higher education fees and income.

  (iii) The California State Lottery Education Fund.

  (iv) Reimbursements.

  (B) For the California Community Colleges, the sum of

appropriations and projected revenues from all of the following:

  (i) The General Fund, including appropriations pursuant to Section

8 of Article XVI of the California Constitution.

  (ii) The State School Fund.

  (iii) The California Lottery Education Fund.

  (iv) Reimbursements.

  (b) “Mandatory systemwide fees” means the fees that all students

enrolled in the California State University or the University of

California are required to pay in order to enroll in courses for the

academic term pursuant to any law or any policy adopted by its

governing board. With respect to the California Community Colleges,

“mandatory systemwide fees” means the fees specified in paragraph (1)

of subdivision (b) of Section 76300.

  (c) “Regents” means the Regents of the University of California.

  (d) “Resident” means a student who is exempt from paying

nonresident tuition pursuant to Chapter 1 (commencing with Section

68000) of Part 41.

  (e) “Trustees” means the Trustees of the California State

University.

  66152.  The Legislature finds and declares all of the following:

  (a) Fees at California’s public postsecondary educational

institutions, including the University of California, the California

State University, and the California Community Colleges, have

undergone steep increases in recent years.

  (b) Over time, fee levels have been erratic and unpredictable, and

have left families unable to realistically plan for the future.

  (c) Recent fee increases demonstrate a trend toward the state

shifting a greater share of the costs of attaining higher education

onto students and families.

  (d) Students and families face the increased challenge of paying

higher fees and an increased share of educational costs at a time

when state unemployment rates continue to soar and as families

continue to struggle to make ends meet.

  (e) Barriers to attaining higher education posed by skyrocketing,

erratic, and unpredictable fee levels come at a time when experts

warn that California needs to produce more college graduates to meet

the state’s workforce and economic needs.

  (f) If the state does not take action to ensure that more

individuals attain a college university education, California will

have one million fewer college graduates than it needs in 2025.

  (g) As of 2025, only 35 percent of working-age adults will have a

college degree in an economy that would otherwise require 41 percent

of workers to have a college degree.

  (h) Failure to address this shortage by, in part, ensuring that

skyrocketing, erratic, and unpredictable fees do not continue to

serve as a barrier to attaining higher education will hamper the

state’s economic recovery and threaten California’s ability to remain

competitive in the increasingly global economy.

  66154.  By enacting this chapter, it is the intent of the

Legislature to do all of the following:

  (a) Limit the increases in student fees at the state’s public

postsecondary educational institutions and help students and families

plan for the future by bringing predictability and consistency to

fee levels over time.

  (b) Enact a rational, moderate, and predictable fee policy that

recognizes the partnership between students, families, and the state

in preparing California’s future workforce.

  (c) Ensure that the share of costs that students and families pay

at the state’s public postsecondary educational institutions remains

below the national average and reflects a reasonable contribution to

expect from students and families.

  66156.  (a) For each of the following segments of public

postsecondary education, the mandatory systemwide fees charged to

resident undergraduate students for any academic year shall not

exceed the following amounts:

  (1) For the University of California, 40 percent of the average

total cost of education for that academic year.

  (2) For the California State University, 30 percent of the average

total cost of education for that academic year.

  (b) It is the intent of the Legislature that, for any academic

year, the mandatory systemwide fees charged to resident students

enrolled in the California Community Colleges, pursuant to paragraph

(1) of subdivision (b) of Section 76300, should not exceed 10 percent

of the average total cost of education for that academic year.

  66158.  Notwithstanding paragraph (1) of subdivision (b) of

Section 76300 or any other law, a community college district, the

trustees, and the regents shall not charge mandatory systemwide fees

to a resident undergraduate student who commences enrollment in an

undergraduate degree program at the respective segment during the

fall term of the 2011-12 academic year, or any academic term

thereafter, in an amount that is greater than the amount of the

mandatory systemwide fees that are in effect for the academic term at

the time he or she commenced enrollment in the undergraduate degree

program.

  66160.  (a) In any academic year, the trustees and the regents

shall not increase the mandatory systemwide fees charged to resident

undergraduate students enrolled in the respective institutions by an

amount exceeding 5 percent of the mandatory systemwide fees charged

to those students for the immediately preceding academic year. The

total amount of mandatory systemwide fees, as increased, shall not

exceed the limits in subdivision (a) of Section 66156.

  (b) It is the intent of the Legislature that the fees charged to

students enrolled in the California Community Colleges, as set forth

in paragraph (1) of subdivision (b) of Section 76300, should not be

increased by an amount exceeding 5 percent of the fees charged to

those students for the immediately preceding academic year and, as

increased, should not exceed the limit in subdivision (b) of Section

66156.

  66162.  (a) Notwithstanding paragraph (1) of subdivision (b) of

Section 76300 or any other law, any increase in the mandatory

systemwide fees charged to a resident undergraduate student enrolled

in the University of California, California State University, or a

community college district that is adopted on or after January 1,

2011, shall not become effective before six months have elapsed after

the date on which the fee increase is adopted.

  (b) This section is subject to the restrictions on charging

mandatory systemwide fees set forth in Section 66158. This section is

not intended to permit an institution to charge fees in an amount

greater than permitted pursuant to Section 66158.

  66165.  (a) This chapter shall not apply to the University of

California, except to the extent that the regents, by appropriate

resolution, make this chapter applicable.

  (b) The regents are requested to adopt policies for increases in

mandatory systemwide fees that are consistent with this chapter.

—

I hope the introduction and exact text of this legislation is helpful.

Note: I am a private, totally disabled, retired citizen with an interest in the betterment of California.

This post was made without consultation or approval of Senator/Lt.Governor Candidate Florez, his Capitol staff nor Senator Florez for Lt. Governor campaign staff.

( – promoted by Robert in Monterey)

A couple of weeks ago, I stumbled across a brilliant metaphor for how the debate over problems often totally misses the root of a given problem itself: “How Best to Fill a Sieve With Water”:

There are many arguments over which is the correct course of action which I liken to debating how best to fill a sieve with water. By this I mean that they ignore the fact that their premise is wrong.

Obviously the first thing an impartial observer would say when the two camps are debating whether to use a spoon or a cup would be to point out that one can’t fill a sieve without first plugging the holes. This seems to be my current role, pointing out assumptions which are either wrong or taken as being obvious without any examination.

Here are a few current (and not so current) examples.

The best way to stimulate the domestic economy is by raising/lowering taxes. Perhaps the best thing is not to stimulate the economy at all but to redistribute the present wealth better or to shrink the economy to a sustainable level. “Growth is good” is the sieve.

The best way to aid the development in the third world is by foreign investment/local projects. That the goal should be “development” goes without saying. What development means is the sieve.

[…]

The way to control foreign powers is by the use of military might/diplomacy. That other states need to be “controlled” is the sieve. Perhaps they just need to be left alone.

The writer, rdf, offers a bunch of other examples, but the principle is clear enough.

Then, I came across this post at Davis Vanguard that brings out one such example of debating the filling of sieves with water, in the context of intra-educational battles over California’s Proposition 92, which would set minimum levels of Community College funding and limit tuition to $15 per unit, paying for it out of prop. 98 funds.

There is no doubt in my mind that community colleges are one of the most laudable aspects of the American educational system, if not the most laudable. The second chance (and third chance, etc) that they offer to students who may not have been ready for college at 18, or people for whom life’s hard realities intervened, or who don’t have the cash to go to a state college, or who are just interested in a skill or a given subject serves to make the American educational system far more democratic in terms of openness and serving the whole population than the far more tracked systems of Asia or Europe (even as our structural flaws and barriers to true equality of access to education place our systems at a distinctly inferior position when looked at from the vantage point of the systemic or societal level). Community colleges are, in a broader educational context that leaves a lot to be ashamed of, a justifiable point of pride. And they only serve that critical educational function when the cost of attending is nominal if not entirely free. So at a gut level, while I’m unsure if prop. 92 is the best means to get to that end, generally I’m quite sympathetic to what they’re trying to do with it.

But it is a mistake to get sucked into fighting over scraps of the pie, when we should be asking why the pie is insufficient for public education at all levels in this state. The CCs work synergistically with the UCs, CSU and the primary educational system. If they’re all hurting for funding, let’s look at where waste can be rededicated toward more productive ends (namely, by moving funds from the embarassingly overpaid administrative area to the long-neglected salaries of staff and faculty or physical plant area). It would probably cut costs significantly were we to have decent public health insurance, to contain that exponentially rising cost of forking over a grotesque profit margin to the insatiable insurance and pharmaceutical corporations. But after you cut the obvious waste, we really need to get serious and start acting like adults about raising taxes to pay for this public good. Jacking up fees is a terrible (and illegal, if you look at the 1960 California Master Plan For Higher Education‘s requirement that fees never go to pay for educational costs, long since breached in bipartisan practice from Gov. Reagan on down to another B movie actor-turned-Governor) way to make up the shortfall, because it strikes at the very heart of an open public educational system by rationing the common good of education by ability to pay (or at least by willingness to accrue sizeable student debt).

Tuition in Calfornia has risen at a rate far exceeding inflation or state costs since 2003, while state spending on higher education has been falling as a % of the state budget for decades now. This is not by accident, this is the result of a deliberate plan to gradually privatise the whole educational system by Governor Schwarzeneggar’s finance director, Donna Arduin. From an LA times article two months ago:

To reorganize the state’s finances, Schwarzenegger recruited Donna Arduin, an advocate of privatizing government services who had been Florida budget director under Gov. Jeb Bush. As California finance director, she soon became known as Schwarzenegger’s “bad cop.”

Her budget plan for UC and CSU called for hundreds of millions of dollars in cuts for the third consecutive year, major student fee hikes, a reduction in enrollment and a plan to steer thousands of students to community colleges instead of the universities.

These “crises” are not accidental or temporary, they’re structural, and are instrumentally used to set different parts of the educational community against each other to distract from the privatization and slow destruction of what was once a world class public institution with free tuition and low fees, open to anyone with the grades. With every tuition and fee hike, and every shift to corporate or private donations (with strings attached, it should go without saying), the very idea of the public is watered down and eroded, and we all get suckered into just accepting it as a natural state or random “crisis” instead of as a system under deliberate atack on ideological grounds.

The solution here is not to fight over the scraps from the table, but rather to demand that funding matches the needs of a world class, accessible educational system. you cannot have quality on the cheap, and there is a vast public interest in having the social mobility and economic dynamism that comes from such an educational system, from the CCs on up.

When you look at what benefit has accrued and continues to accrue to the state of California from the existence of our public higher educational system, it is well worth the money. As these fees continue to be raised, that once great engine of social mobility will slow down and eventually grind to a stop, and those social benefits will not accrue in the same way. Cutting a segment of the population out makes it harder to justify paying for the system collectively. Turning away California’s poor, California’s working class and increasingly its middle class as well as starves our economy and our culture from the dynamism and works that those students might have created with the stimulus of a world class education.

If one believes in an educational meritocracy, education ought to be completely free, to let the cream rise to the top. What privatizers like Schwarzeneggar and Arduin mistakenly assume is that those with the money are the cream by virtue of their having all that money in the first place. The history of America and the history of California suggest otherwise.

I’m going to have to read up on prop 92 to decide whether it’s worth pursuing, but in the big picture, it’s a symptom of a greater problem that we’re not addressing as a state.

(This grew out of a comment on the Davis Vanguard thread, that got so long I figured it needed its own diary. Originally at surf putah)

( – promoted by Robert in Monterey)

Pay for disgraced overpaid executives goes up:

University of California President Robert Dynes, who was pressured earlier this year to step down by next June, is expected to get an over-scale faculty salary of $245,000 for research and teaching at UC San Diego.

[…]

Dynes had been at the center of controversy after The Chronicle disclosed that millions of dollars in extra compensation and questionable perks had been handed to some top executives without telling the public or regents. The Chronicle’s findings, reported in 2005 and 2006, were followed by three state and university audits that showed how UC administrators sometimes flouted, circumvented and violated university policies governing pay and perks.

Speaking to reporters outside the meeting, Dynes said he would be taking a yearlong administrative leave at his presidential salary of $405,000 after he steps down.

“It is a sabbatical that I have earned. I have been at UC for 17 years, toward 18 years, and I have never taken a sabbatical,” Dynes said. “I look forward to it to re-energize myself.”

In leaving the presidency, Dynes will have his moving costs to San Diego reimbursed and he is authorized to get a subsidized, low-interest housing loan from UC.

[…]

In related action, the committee gave thumbs up to a pair of 17 percent raises for Hume and Vice President Anne Broome. The full board is expected to approve them Thursday.Hume needs the $62,500 raise to bring his salary closer to his peers, Regent Judith Hopkinson said. Hume’s salary, which will be $425,000 a year, is more than Dynes’ $405,000 salary. Regents Chair Richard Blum [that’s Mr. Dianne Feinstein, for those keeping score in ruling class bingo.] said that when a new president is hired, the salary for the top position would be increased.

At the same time  the already-high tuition for debt-burdened students goes up:

The California State University Board of Trustees is expected to approve a $4.8 billion budget request today that could increase student fees 10 percent next year, and the University of California’s governing board is expected to follow suit with a possible increase of 7 percent.

[…]

Fees have nearly doubled at both universities since 2002. Most recently, the 23 campuses of the California State University system raised fees by 10 percent to about $3,521 annually this year, and the 10-campus University of California system increased the cost for undergraduates by 9.7 percent to about $7,494. The figures do not include expenses such as room, meals and books.

[…]

Gregory Cendana of the UC Student Association said that he is not seeing an increase in quality or services with his rising fees. He said he has to work 35 hours a week in two jobs and will graduate with $21,000 in debt.

“I’m tired of paying higher fees when I still have to sit on the floor of my classes,” he said.

So let me get this straight. A decent wage and benefits for food service workers? Sorry, don’t have the money, unless we take it out of stuident fees. Cost of living increases for professors, staff or academic student employees? Sorry, can’t afford it, times are tough, tighten your belts. Keeping fee increases within inflation levels (let’s not even begin to talk about the UC mandate to provide free public tuition, long since abrogated in deed if paid lip service)? Sorry, wouldn’t be fiscally prudent, pull yourselves up by your bootstraps between classes, kids.

But huge bonuses and six figure salaries for disgraced administrators? Sure, the UC system needs “good people,” and their peers are making so much more than them, think of the embarassment of having smaller salaries than the other plutocrats.

They aren’t even trying to hide it anymore. The UC and CSU systems are being privatized before our eyes.

originally at surf putah

(Crap… What’s going on in our institutions of higher learning? – promoted by atdleft)

In their ever-continuing quest to turn California’s public higher education into a de facto private institution, the University of California, not content with jacking up graduate student tuition yet another 10% (and nearly doubling fees since 2002), is now trying to stiff TAs, readers, and research assistants in the latest series of contract negotiations by freezing fee remissions and health insurance premiums:

The UAW Local 2865 bargaining team met Monday, April 16 with university representatives to discuss changes the university would like to make to our contract.

Unfortunately, the bargaining team was alarmed by the uncooperative, antiunion tactics of the university. The university is proposing to cut a number of critical benefits and roll back several groundbreaking union victories. Not only would these cuts and rollbacks have a negative financial impact on all our members, they would also undermine the ability of UC to continue to be competitive, encourage diversity, and attract the best and brightest.

FEE REMISSIONS
At the same time that we are proposing to expand the types of fees covered and who is eligible to receive remissions, the university is proposing to end full fee remissions for graduate-student employees, proposing instead to cap remissions. What this would mean is that whenever fees increase-which is the unfortunate trend-we would end up paying that increase out-of-pocket.

HEALTH INSURANCE
Additionally, under the current contract, many of us have our health insurance premium fully covered. Again, while we are proposing to expand the types of fees covered and who is eligible to receive remissions, the university is proposing to cap our health insurance premium remissions at a fixed dollar amount, thus transferring the rising cost of health care onto us. Given that the health plans at many campuses are already inadequate and steadily deteriorating, this proposal is unacceptable.

The university also made several proposals which would prevent teaching assistants, readers, and tutors from being informed of their rights, and which would limit our rights to express solidarity with workers in other campus unions.

The university is proposing to take us in the wrong direction. This is unacceptable. As bargaining continues, we will keep you informed of developments at the bargaining table and opportunities to participate in winning a great fourth contract.  If you have questions or would like to get more involved, please reply to this message or contact your campus office.

In solidarity,

UAW Local 2865 Bargaining Committee

This is not the first time that the university has tried this, but it is pretty bad news that they’re looking to freeze remissions while the fees continue skyrocketing this way. For most UC graduate students, fee remission and health care coverage when working for the university are the only way to make ends meet, and often their value is far greater than the actual pay that the work provides.

I have heard many fellow grad students wonder  aloud what the point of paying those union fees is. Here is my answer: the only reason why we even have health insurance and fee remissions when we work is that grad students organized and were willing to strike to make the point that the University of California does not run without our labor. The Regents do not just pay us out of the goodness of their hearts, and they will not continue to respect what gains we have negotiated in perpetuity, out of the goodness of their hearts. Only by organizing and demonstrating the value of the work that we do by being willing to deny it if need be, will we get the kind of pay and benefits that allow us to scratch out a public graduate school education.

Academic student employees are not asking for an unreasonable amount of pay or benefits here. The University of California has been utterly unreasonable in raising fees over the past several years, far beyond the rate of inflation and at the same time that executive and administration salaries and compensation have skyrocketed. This latest attempt to further wring more money out of already-indebted graduate students is unconscionable. I would hope that our elected representatives would take notice, in particular Davis’ own Assemblywoman Lois Wolk, and Lt. Governor John Garamendi, who is a Regent for the UC system (and whose son, John Garamendi, Jr., is an administrator at UC Merced, and reportedly considering challenging Lois Wolk for the 5th State Senate Seat). There are a lot of academic employees here in Yolo County, and we do vote.

If you are a grad student and interested in getting involved on any of the UC campuses, bookmark the Academic Student Employee union page. If this negotiation continues in this direction, we’re going to need as many students working together as we can to turn things around.

originally at surf putah