UCs should use funds as they see fit

The University of California: The name hardly makes sense anymore.

Declining support has left state funds to account for just 13 percent of the university’s revenue, while the state still gets to stipulate much of how the UC spends its money.

Giving individual campuses a chance to set their own tuition rates ““ a long-debated proposal that has recently gained more attention ““ is a step toward better financial planning. But the conversation needs to be intensified, given the UC’s dire financial situation. The UC’s relationship with the state needs far-reaching changes, and individual campuses need to be given more fiscal autonomy.

The UC Commission on the Future, a two-year-old committee that suggests how the UC should cope with financial difficulties, has debated the idea of differential tuition among the UC campuses. The concept is based on the idea that more students want to go to UCLA than UC Riverside, so the former should be allowed to charge more tuition as a way to raise much-needed funds. The commission ended up not fully backing the idea as part of its final report, but many are still talking about it.

The suggestion has garnered much backlash as well, in part because a few UCs’ ability to charge more could effectively turn the UC into a tiered system, the Los Angeles Times reported.

Recently, UC Irvine Professor Peter Krapp argued in an op-ed that this proposal is short-sighted. Such stratification would hurt the UC because the reputation of most campuses would suffer.

But it’s not as though the UC isn’t already tiered. Who among us doesn’t understand that UC Berkeley provides a different experience for students than UC Riverside? If the campuses sell different products (undergraduate educational experience), they should be able to charge different prices (tuition) based on demand.

Another argument against differential tuition is that it reduces accessibility for students from low-income families. But with higher tuition comes higher levels of financial aid. The UC does a good job of attracting a financially diverse student body through programs like the Blue and Gold Opportunity Plan, which pays tuition for those whose families have incomes of less than $70,000 per year ($80,000 effective next year). These sorts of programs should only be strengthened if tuition increases.

But while differential tuition seems to take steps in the right direction, it dances around larger issues. Why are the hands of each campus tied when it comes to finances?

Currently, campus administrations cannot determine tuition rates or how money from the state is spent, and this is wrong because individual campuses know best where money is needed.

“Ridiculous strings are put on funds that come from the state,” said Charles E. Young, a former UCLA chancellor and an advocate of UC privatization.

Young is right. The detailed version of Gov. Jerry Brown’s revised state budget has many specific items under the UC’s allocation. The state decides specifically how much will go toward summer session instruction, institutional support, extramural programs and even libraries academic support, among other programs.

This seems like unnecessary micromanagement. The state should let individual campus administrations decide how to spend funds, and allowing them to charge different amounts for tuition starts this process of taking power from the state.

Why do we see construction on campus while we are struggling to hire new faculty? Funds are too stipulated. Administrators at campuses understand how to spend these funds more effectively than those in Sacramento.

Young said that instead, the state should provide the UC with a lump sum of funds that could be spent by each campus as it sees appropriate, while the UC should provide the state with certain predetermined services as part of a contract.

For example, the university would promise to educate a predetermined number of California residents, provide research facilities and train a given number of professionals. This would be a big step toward semi-privatization ““ an idea that scares many but almost seems necessary at this point if the quality of the UC system is to be preserved.

Devolving power to the individual campuses should start with revisiting the Master Plan for Higher Education in California, a 1960 document that outlines rules for the UC, state colleges and community colleges.

We’re getting further and further away from the Master Plan, and no one is really talking about it, said Dan Mitchell, professor emeritus at the UCLA Anderson School of Management and the UCLA Luskin School of Public Affairs.

Instead of taking such a hands-on approach to how universities function (the Master Plan is more than 200 pages long), the state government should trust those who are on the ground. Let chancellors and administrators decide what needs to be done with the money they receive.

The relationship between the UC and the state needs to be revisited, and it’s time to start that conversation.

The state is no longer able to fund the UC as the top-notch university system it has become.

The state will be forced to accept educational mediocrity, drastically reduce enrollment or change the way it funds the UC. Taking baby steps and pushing decisions onto future generations is just irresponsible.

Think UCLA should be more expensive than UC Merced? Email Ramzanali at [email protected]. Send general comments to [email protected].