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UCI resumes classes today with deep money woes
September 24th, 2009, 5:00 am · 22 Comments · posted by Gary Robbins, science writer-editor
UCI will have an enrollment of roughly 27,000 this year. Image courtesy of UCI.
The fall quarter begins today at UC Irvine, where some faculty might stage a one-day walkout. Many professors are upset that furloughs were imposed throughout the University of California system to save money and help the state balance its budget. There’s also a faculty hiring freeze at UCI that’s expected to lead to higher teaching loads and bigger classes, in some areas.
Such changes haven’t solved all of the system’s money problems. The UC says it has a $1 billion budget shortfall that could rise to $1.2 billion next year. That’s why the UC Board of Regents will decide in November whether to increase student fees by 30 percent. Such an increase could raise fees at least $1,344 for undergraduates who are residents of California. And the raise follows a fee hike in May that averages 9.3 percent for undergraduates.
Here are answers to some common questions about the UC’s financial situation.
Q: How likely is it that Regents will raise fees 30 percent?
A: It’s likely, but not guaranteed. UC President Mark Yudof says he supports the “painful” increases as one way of preserving the quality of the system. The Regents will probably approve the idea; they have few other options.
Q: What impact would a 30 percent fee hike have on a school like UCI?
A: The answer isn’t entirely clear. The hike would probably mean that furloughs for faculty and staff would end in September 2010. UCI also might be able to resume hiring faculty and give merit pay increases. But many students would face a large financial burden that’s part of fundamental change in the way the UC operates. A greater percentage of cost is being shifted directly to students, rather than coming from the state. Yudof has said that the UC is becoming less of a “freeway to higher education” than an academic “tollroad” for students.
Q: Will students get additional financial aid to cope with costs?
A: One-third of the proposed fee increase would be devoted to financial aid. UCI Chancellor Michael Drake says, “There is a mitigation plan under which students from families earning less than $60,000 will have no increase.” The family income threshold might rise to $70,000 next year. And Drake says increases in “programs such as the Pell Grants, along with changes in tax credits available to middle class families,” will enable most students who need aid to get at least some help. The UC also wants to provide further relief through additional scholarship money, but its unclear whether the system can raise the funds.
Q: Will UCI students have a harder time getting classes they need?
A: UCI reduced freshmen enrollment by about 500 for the fall. But the university is still likely to have more than 27,000 students, and there will be fewer classes. UCI says it plans to offer roughly 6 percent fewer sections of lower-division general education classes this fall, compared to last year. Its unclear which disciplines will be hit the hardest, but they’re likely to include the humanities and social sciences.
Q: Will it take students longer to get the classes they need to earn a degree?
A: Drake says, “We will do everything we can to get the classes students need to graduate on time.” That’s a pledge, not a guarantee. UCI, like other UC campuses, isn’t fully funded by the state for the number of students it has. And the campus is under growing pressure to add classes because the university’s prestige and more students are applying. That creates a supply-and-demand problem. UCI might not be able to supply all of the classes students demand.
Q: Has the furlough program led to a “brain drain” at UCI? Are lots of talented faculty getting angry and leaving?
A: That’s hard to quantify, but it doesn’t appear that a large number of professors has left due to the system’s financial problems. Drake says, “We always have a certain level of attrition. We have a more difficult time retaining faculty (when the economy is bad.) But the University of California is not the only higher education system that’s facing awful budget cuts. There is less hiring going on, but we’re doing everything we can to support and retain faculty.
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Gary writes “There’s also a faculty hiring freeze at UCI that’s expected to lead to higher teaching loads and bigger classes, in some areas.”
The bigger classes is probably true in the Humanities and Social Sciences, but there is hardly a single biology undergraduate course at UCI that does not have 200 to 300+ enrollment, and it has been that way for 20 years. For example, the picture used for your article was taken several years ago (before the budget crisis)
OnlyTheFacts: You’re talking about regular lecture biology classes, not upper division biology.
Fees will not preclude most of these students as they are among the academically elite… for a good education their only other elite option is to go to a private and pay up to four times as much per year.
I suspect individuals on the low money end could get marginalized (although many would offset the cost with financial aid), but they (the UC) could probably lift fees into the $15K range (in a lightswitch move instead of the slow to a steady boil method currently used to increase fees) and still see enrollment demand at levels similar to what is seen today given the profoundly limited other public 4 yr college options in the region(s)….
The option for most of the students UCI would be live here and pay more or go out of state and pay a lot more… even at a much higher cost the UC will be cheaper than the out of state option…
I agree with Ed, the days of giving away a UC education are OVER. Time to come into line with other public institutions of similar quality. I would be so bold as to suggest that you could double the tuition and fees at Cal and UCLA and there would be no drop in the number of students wanting to attend. Increasing fees at the remaining campuses to the 15-17K range will have little impact–in fact, maybe if the fees were raised to that level, the students who are not quite ready for the UC would decide on alternative routes. This might improve the undergraduate environment, in the long run, on many of the UC campuses.
“…or a good education their only other elite option is to go to a private and pay up to four times as much per year.”
UCI room/board/tuition= approx. 26k/year
What private is charging over 100k/year for the same services?
RULE NUMBER 1 WHEN DISCUSSION EDUCTION COSTS:
Thou shalt not conflate tuition and fees with room and board.
RULE NUMBER 2!
Check your spelling before hitting “Submit Comment” button! ; )
I should have been more clear… sorry for the confusion… Using your computation the cost at the private would be a little more than twice as much based on a total cost for UCI that was 150% higher than I was working with…
I was looking at the local privates USC and Chapman ~$40K tuition compared to UCI at ~$10K fees figuring to save money Junior would live at home in all cases (and scrounge off mom and dad… as they likely will after graduating from college) or for the ones in need of a residential college experience I assumed they would live in the library and shower in the gym and eat out of dumpsters ($0 room and board until they get caught)…
I was looking fees vs tuition only. The rest (room/board/books are costs that are fairly common across universities unless you send your kids into the exceptionally rural college or university in Tennessee or West Virginia… but not sure you are still looking at elite privates at that point…
The really crazy part of this is that faculty who are paid primarily on contract and grant monies (non-state) are taking far less than 4%-10% pay cuts in many cases. The result is that staff, who aren’t generally paid this way, are taking the brunt of the cuts, in relative terms. For example, in some cases, staff members are taking thousands of dollars in cuts while faculty in the same area are taking a few hundred dollars in cuts. The staff are here for the faculty and the students, but what started out as an attempt to be equitable has turned in to a very unequitable situation. Faculty still receive their merit increases and promotional increases; non-represented staff haven’t had increases in a couple of years. In terms of the overall budget, I think that UC should just privitize; given the very low level of State support at this point, UC is just about privitized anyway. Cut ties with the State, charge market rate, provide more financial aid, and be done with the endless posturing of the morons in Sacramento (the Legislature). Let the Regents run the operation and let UC be self sufficient.
UCI caters to Foreign students! So, it is unlikely that it would affect it’s enrollment that much. Besides, when you have professors earning well in excess of $100K/yr there is no sympathy by the common folk!
My business partner just wrote a check for $29K for his daughter to attend NYU because they wanted nothing to do with the UC system.
That is sad, both of my parents as well as my younger sister are products of the UC system.
Back when they were in school, the professors cared about the kids, and not all the perks and benefits!
I’m a graduate of the CSU system, and even that has gotten way out of hand.
The financial woes for UCI along with the Cal State System have resulted in “NO STUDENTS BEING ACCEPTED FOR THE SPRING SESSION”.
With all of the “budget cuts” the University of California had become so bloated that they may beyond repair! This has left students with little choice for an education at a four year institution in S. California.
Why is it that other states (I was accepted to University of Memphis as an older returning student 50+), but I can not get into a local university. What about the young men and women being discharged from the service after risking it all in Iraq or Afghanistan? How about all of those on the unemployment rolls who would like to change careers or enhance their skills to further their job hunt.
California was once the leader in the nation when it came to higher education. The politicians in Sacramento need to be cleaned out - gone! Tax and Spend, particularly on social re-engineering and money spent on illegal aliens. California is becoming like a third world country when it comes to our politicians.
I am a UCI alumni and even with the increase in cost it will still be a bargain.
To break even they need to raise fees by $44,000 per student.
“UC Irvine faculty, students and staff plan to protest budget cuts to the state’s higher education institutions by staging a walkout today.”DP. And, with any luck they will just keep on walking far, far away. Then we can replace the faculty with those that want to teach and replace the students with those that want to learn and the replace the staff with those that want to work. Great idea. Go Eaters! “
Went to the walkout. It was pretty disappointing.
The interview is dead wrong on two points. Rising tuition by 30% will bring 24.5 million dollars to UCI. The gap that UCI has to cover is 42 million dollars. This is without any additional cut. But guess what? There are already additional projected cuts that will take the gap to 50 million dollars. Tuition has to go up 90% to close the gap.
There is brain drain. At least 100 people left UCI alone last year. Is it true that they can be replaced? Eventually yes, with lower quality professors who couldn’t get a good job at more stable institutions. The same is true in the case of students. You charge more, some people will be able to afford it. Are they the best? Not necessarily so. (90% percent increase in tuition will pay for just basic operations, so forget about financial aid).
A final thing. Many of the best brains from UC left for either Europe or China. That’s scary. T
Tamara, you can’t really tell how much of that is due to UC’s financial problems unless you compare it to the number of people retiring or leaving in a typical year.
Tamara: The budget deficit at UCI is not $42 million. It is $77 million. And scores of people leave UCI, and other UC campuses, every year. There’s attrition. Usually, UCI hires scores of people each year. But there’s currently a hiring freeze in place. You also mention a 90 percent increase in tuition. No one is proposing a 90 percent increase in tuition. The Regents approved an increase in May that averages about 9.3 percent. Now, the Regents are looking at an additional 30 percent.
Yeah, right, Gary “attrition.” Big problem.
After all, UCI just added a law department, paying Erwin Chimerinski
about $400,000 a year for the privilege of adding yet more “prestige” to the community.
These Ivory Tower academics get big bucks to teach one, maybe two classes.
On top of all that, they apply for grants to further milk taxpayers.
When Democrats aren’t clamoring for yet more education monies to be spent, they’re clamoring for no increases in the poor kiddie’s fees.
Soak the taxpayer, that’s the eternal solution.
You are grossly misinformed regarding faculty pay. While there are some who are paid extraordinary amounts, most faculty at UCI are paid less than their counterparts at the community college system. You can see what faculty make by going online -it’s all transparent. Most make $50-70k, some less, some more.
Some faculty teach more or less than others, but they also spend a great deal of time dealing with administrative duties, service to the university, state and community, and research. Some areas depend on most of their funding from the state, some on mostly federal or corporate research funds. Gross generalizations are tempting to make, but they do disservice to the great majority of faculty and staff who care about students deeply and work for less pay than you might think. Oh… and yes, there is truth to both the cut in pay (they may call it a furlough, but since faculty cannot take any time off, it’s really a paycut) and the increased teaching loads. Now… let’s talk about the real problem, which is the state’s lack of financial support, reneging on a promise made to every Californian to make education affordable.
Just an idea, but -
Has anyone tried pricing according to types of majors? By example - Surely it costs far less to run a Sociology 101 course in a giant lecture hall taught by some bearded Marxist than, say, a bio or chem class, what with all the lab equipment and all. Plus the earning prospects of the latter are far greater than the former.
Anyone? Anyone? Bueller?
I’m not sure about this but - my impression is that there are extra lab fees for some classes, but they are not that big compared to the student’s total bill.