Dean Burns has just shared with us a California Legislative Analyst Office (LAO) report, which is one of many expounding on new budgetary practices for state universities. Just yesterday, a report published that some measures are set in place for school sensitivity to student enrollment rate and inflation.
(1) Student Enrollment
The lower enrollment in law schools has been felt nationwide and resulted budget realignments in many schools. State gov. has "provided base increases so that universities could cover increased costs for their existing programs."
(2) Inflation
If state gov. regularly adjusts its funding base for inflation, then this would certainly help our schools to manage their operations with respect to the economy over time. However, the LAO has noted that "the state typically did not have a policy on student tuition levels and revenues, though tuition revenues are used along with state funds to support the universities' core programs." This is troubling. Education is a public good that, by nature, is price-sensitive and cannot have tuition raised and lowered to make up for operational costs. Society cannot afford to go without any policy or metric to stabilize student tuition levels.
LAO noted that the state has also earmarked funding for targeted purposes (pensions, student outreach programs) and otherwise uses state bond funds for specific projects that are reviewed and approved. Why shell out state funds and not use these shortages to identify a better business plan? Can we talk tuition policy and better align supply-and-demand now?
More enlightening might be a look for progress in the past 6 years. Take a look, comments welcome as we consider these needs and design for a tuition policy.
"Over the last six years, the state has moved away from its traditional budgetary approach for the University of California (UC) and the California State University (CSU). Notably, the state no longer (1) funds enrollment or inflation, (2) designates as much funding for specific purposes, or (3) reviews UC's capital projects as part of the regular budget process. Instead, the state has been providing the universities with unallocated funding increases and allowing the universities to make funding decisions previously made by the state. Another recent change to the state's budgetary approach is its inclusion of performance measures (though the state has not yet determined how to factor these measures into its budget decisions). Despite these changes to the traditional budgetary approach, one aspect that has not changed in recent years is the state's ad-hoc approach to student tuition.
"We recommend the Legislature return to using its traditional approach to funding the universities but make some refinements. Specifically, we recommend the Legislature resume funding enrollment but set enrollment expectations for different types of students and for a longer time horizon. We also recommend the Legislature fund a new freshman eligibility study. Further, we recommend the Legislature resume funding inflation and assume students and the state share in cost increases. To address concerns about the traditional budgetary approach's lack of emphasis on efficiency, we recommend the Legislature use its recently adopted performance measure relating to spending per degree to monitor the universities' productivity. We also recommend the Legislature review capital projects for the universities through the regular budget process."
This report (24 pages) is available using the following link: