State Master Plan unrealistic with cuts

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When economic times are tough, Americans respond by cutting back
their costs. Businesses downsize by cutting jobs, and families make
more fiscally responsible decisions. But when the UC system faces a
$163 million cut in state funding, a joint committee in the
California state legislature believes the UC system can take the
cut in stride and at the same time stretch way beyond its capacity
to meet increasing enrollment demands.

In a draft of the new California Master Plan for Higher
Education, the committee recommends that the UC continue to admit
the top 12.5 percent of high school graduates throughout the state,
but they fail to address the immediate problem with this proposal:
lack of funding.

If the UC were to follow the 12.5 percent plan, the UC would
grow by 60,000 students system-wide by the year 2010. This year,
Gov. Gray Davis’ budget proposal calls for over $60 million
to fund a modest growth of about four percent. If the numbers from
this year are any indication, funding an influx of 60,000 students
across the UC would be nothing short of a miracle. The university
would have to hire 3,000 additional professors to cover the
increase, according to the UC Office of the President. This means
recruiting new faculty. But attracting new faculty will prove
difficult, considering current faculty members have yet to receive
an expected cost of living increase from the state for the past two
years.

And since Davis left the University Partnership agreement off
his most recent budget proposal, the UC will also no longer be able
to rely on state funding for construction and expansion projects.
So even if the UC were able to accommodate the 12.5 percent
admission proposal ““ and hire enough staff and faculty for
them ““ the UC wouldn’t be left with enough money to
build the labs and lecture halls to actually teach the students.
Some master plan.

While the long-term solution is to seek out a funding proposal
capable of handling the enrollment increase, the immediate solution
is to cap enrollment and re-evaluate the 12.5 percent admissions
proposal to make it more in tune with the discrepancies in the
state’s K-12 education.

At UCLA, resources are already stretched thin, and capping
enrollment would help faculty and staff redirect their focus back
to students’ quality of education, rather than focusing
solely on their graduation rates. Students already have to contend
with overcrowded lectures and an impersonal learning atmosphere.
The last thing students need at UCLA are more students competing
for the same resources.

But even with the expected enrollment increase, students from
underprivileged high schools are still not getting into the
UC’s flagship schools at Berkeley and Los Angeles.

The joint committee must continue looking toward developing more
programs like Comprehensive Review, Dual Admissions and the four
percent admissions policy to address the UC’s diversity
crisis.

Now that would be a master plan.