2008 Woodie Awards
What if UC system lost state funding?
Lisa M. Krieger / MCT
Issue date: 11/16/07 Section: Arts & Leisure
Tuition would climb, jumping more than 80 percent by 2010-11, to $15,306 a year for undergraduates. Under this scenario, UC could lose affluent students to smaller private colleges, reducing the academic quality of the student body. Low-income students would flock to less expensive schools, reducing diversity. Graduate assistantships would be in shorter supply and faculty workloads would climb. Lucrative research would gain importance over teaching.
The campuses would go their separate ways, the report predicts. The three strongest campuses - Berkeley, Los Angeles and San Diego - have the market power to attract students from around the world. But the other nine campuses might struggle.
"It would alter the UC system beyond recognition," the faculty report says. But it adds: "This scenario cannot be ruled out."
So far, UC's efforts to privatize have been selectively applied to certain parts of the institution, such as:
- Higher fees at professional schools.
UC's business, law and medical schools, moving toward greater financial self-sufficiency, say higher tuition is necessary to stay competitive.
At the Haas School of Business, total fees could hit $40,882 by 2010-11. At Boalt Law School, fees will jump from $26,897 this year to $40,906 in 2010-11.
Former U.S. Rep. Tom Campbell, the Bank of America dean of the Haas School of Business, told UC Regents that top business schools around the country now charge much more than UC. Of students, "it's reasonable to ask that they pay the market rate," he said.
- Aggressive private fundraising.
In the most ambitious campaign in UC-Berkeley's history, campus officials are seeking to raise more than $2 billion in private donations by 2012. At UCLA, officials call their recent $3 billion fundraising campaign the most successful in the history of higher education.
But while alumni donations to UC are climbing, officials say the university still lags behind competing institutions such as Stanford and Harvard universities.
The campuses would go their separate ways, the report predicts. The three strongest campuses - Berkeley, Los Angeles and San Diego - have the market power to attract students from around the world. But the other nine campuses might struggle.
"It would alter the UC system beyond recognition," the faculty report says. But it adds: "This scenario cannot be ruled out."
So far, UC's efforts to privatize have been selectively applied to certain parts of the institution, such as:
- Higher fees at professional schools.
UC's business, law and medical schools, moving toward greater financial self-sufficiency, say higher tuition is necessary to stay competitive.
At the Haas School of Business, total fees could hit $40,882 by 2010-11. At Boalt Law School, fees will jump from $26,897 this year to $40,906 in 2010-11.
Former U.S. Rep. Tom Campbell, the Bank of America dean of the Haas School of Business, told UC Regents that top business schools around the country now charge much more than UC. Of students, "it's reasonable to ask that they pay the market rate," he said.
- Aggressive private fundraising.
In the most ambitious campaign in UC-Berkeley's history, campus officials are seeking to raise more than $2 billion in private donations by 2012. At UCLA, officials call their recent $3 billion fundraising campaign the most successful in the history of higher education.
But while alumni donations to UC are climbing, officials say the university still lags behind competing institutions such as Stanford and Harvard universities.
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