Kunal Patel: Napolitano must focus on garnering future support for UC funding
By Kunal Patel
May 22, 2015 12:24 a.m.
For all intents and purposes, University of California President Janet Napolitano has performed her job admirably well.
Student perception of Napolitano has dramatically shifted since the demonstrative strip protest at the March UC Board of Regents meeting to a much more positive reception of her recent budget negotiations with Gov. Jerry Brown. Brown’s latest budget revision – which included a tuition freeze for two-year California residents, a generous non-discretionary $436 million fund to pay off UC pension debt and $25 million for deferred maintenance – is not what Napolitano wanted, but it’s much better than what we expected her to get.
Although Napolitano seems like the victor in the budget negotiations with Brown, Brown’s reluctance to add additional permanent funding to the UC shows that he won these negotiations. Essentially, Brown will not deviate from his beliefs that the UC can sustain itself without additional permanent state funding, which means that Napolitano will not likely secure any additional permanent funding in the future from Brown.
If Napolitano truly wants to achieve her goals – lower class sizes, increased in-state student enrollment and affordable UC tuition – she should gear her efforts toward the future rather than waste them trying to change Brown’s opinion of higher education. In the immediate future, it would be politically beneficial for Napolitano and the regents to support Brown’s budget after months of negotiations. Furthermore, the UC should implement the changes that Brown suggested – such as online classes to lower educational costs – to garner public favor for future attempts in securing funding.
While it is unlikely that Brown will provide additional permanent state funding to the UC, all is not lost for Napolitano and the UC Board of Regents’ goal of securing permanent additional state funding. Because the tuition freeze for in-state California residents is set to expire the year prior to the next California gubernatorial election, Napolitano should be ready to lobby gubernatorial candidates for additional UC state funding by bringing higher education back to the forefront of the political conversation during the next election cycle.
Napolitano should develop a comprehensive political strategy that spans from now until the 2018 election that seeks to raise public awareness and change state opinion to favor the restoration of UC funding to pre-2008 financial crisis levels. Such a plan should target both Democratic and Republican gubernatorial candidates. Current Lt. Gov. Gavin Newsom, a UC regent and an early favorite for the Democratic nomination for governor, should be an early target for lobbying efforts toward securing additional state funding.
Napolitano should angle her plea to gubernatorial candidates by emphasizing that she has fulfilled her obligation to work with the state and suggesting that it’s time for the state to fulfill its obligation to fund the University. Additionally, Napolitano should angle her pitch as an investment in California’s future. By allocating more state funding toward increasing the quality of education and increasing in-state student enrollment, California will profit from the state income tax of those California-resident UC graduates if they decide to work in the state. And since California’s economy is estimated to have a deficit of 1 million college-educated workers by 2025, there will be plenty of jobs for those graduates to secure. By focusing on the economic benefits of increasing California’s college-educated workers, Napolitano can argue that the state will eventually pay itself back.
Furthermore, the Board of Regents should leverage an endorsement toward whichever gubernatorial candidate promises to provide the UC more state resources and reaffirms the importance of higher education in the state. Although such an endorsement would be unprecedented for the UC, it would help the UC to have an active voice toward securing additional state support.
Napolitano has rewritten the rules of conduct for UC President for the better. She should continue to use her political savviness and newfound positive relationship with the governor’s office and students to secure additional state funding in the future.
