We’re tired of hearing the same tedious talking points from the University of California leadership. At the UC Board of Regents’ meeting Wednesday, they repeated their stale refrain: “Lobby legislators, increase tuition.”
The one novel idea came not from regents but from students.
A group of students at UC Riverside, including the editorial board of the school’s newspaper, is proposing a funding model where students would no longer pay tuition. Instead, after graduating, students would pay 5 percent of their income for 20 years.
In contrast, Chair Sherry Lansing announced that the board would move an upcoming meeting from UC San Francisco to Sacramento and host a rally encouraging legislators and the governor to raise funds for the university.
The regents presented another reiteration of a tired idea ““ in March 2010, UC President Mark Yudof and Regent Russell Gould joined students in a day of lobbying at the Capitol.
Though these efforts are commendable, the fact remains that there are many interest groups competing for state funds. And many public programs have lobbies much stronger ÂÂand better-funded than the UC’s.
It is disappointing that the meat of the regents’ activity is to pull off a grand publicity stunt that has a strong chance of failing to make a difference.
If the regents want to go public, they should focus their efforts on Gov. Jerry Brown’s tax initiative for the November ballot. The measure, which polls show has considerable public backing, would raise the sales tax and income taxes for the wealthy to support higher education and leaven the state general fund.
The most refreshing phase of the dialogue at the regents meeting centered on the “UC Student Investment Proposal” from UC Riverside students, which they say could triple the university’s revenues over the next 20 years.
Yudof said that the plan was “constructive,” and that his office will look at it closely.
Though the idea should be seriously scrutinized before moving forward, this is the first innovative, long-term solution in years that would help balance the UC’s budget without burdening students and families.
The UC leadership’s last stab at designing a blueprint for the university was a proposal that would raise tuition for four consecutive years by 8 to 16 percent.
State funding for the UC is at an all-time low, and this trend is not going to radically reverse. It is widely recognized that the university needs to find a coherent plan for dealing with this problem.
A significant accomplishment at the regents’ meeting was that the UC leadership showed a willingness to seriously listen to students. Nathan Brostrom and Patrick Lenz, financial executives for the UC, even talked the idea over with the editor-in-chief of UC Riverside’s student paper prior to the meeting.
Both sides came together to consider a plan that could be a game-changer in the way the university operates.