Each UC Campus To Set Own Tuition Under New Proposal

By Michelle Woo Thu., Apr. 26 2012 at 2:30 PM

The premise is hardly debatable: No University of California school is the same.

For that reason, officials at UC Berkeley want all 10 campuses to break free from Daddy Board of Regents--or at least have more independence. They've written a proposal to allow each UC to set its own tuition and fees, approve salaries for top earners and make other decisions that have historically been left up to the board. Advocates believe that the university's one-size-fits-all structure has inhibited individual campuses.

"It's like you have 10 children and each has different talents and challenges,"

UC Berkeley Chancellor Robert Birgeneau told the Associated Press. "We need a system in which each of them receives the kind of attention they need."

Campuses wouldn't get to go completely buck wild under the plan. The UC Board of Regents would still be in charge of "overarching policy matters such as admissions standards, state funding, negotiating union contracts, hiring chancellors and overseeing pension funds," AP reports.

Still, UC President Mark Yudof has criticized the plan, reports Cal's student newspaper The Daily Californian. Opponents have called attempts to give individual campuses more autonomy "elitist."

UC Student Regent-designate Jonathan Stein told The Daily Californian that the possibility of campuses setting student tuition and their own scale for faculty pay has the potential to create "flagship" UC campuses (read: UC Berkeley and UCLA) with tuition prices "harder to access for middle-class students."

Birgeneau, one of the main authors of the proposal, continues to seek more input from the UC community.

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perspective2

Here is what happens when each University of California Campus Chancellors is free to set tuition.

UC Berkeley fall admit rate forCalifornians drops to record low 18%. There was a 43percent jump in the number of affluent foreign and affluent out-of-statestudents accepted. In spite of eligibility University of California Berkeley Chancellor Birgeneau($450.000 salary), Provost Breslauer ($306,000 salary) shed thousands ofinstate applicants. Qualified instate applicants to public Cal. are replaced by a $50,600 payment from bornabroad affluent foreign and affluent out of state students. And,Birgeneau subsidizes affluent foreign and affluent out of state tuition in theguise of diversity while he doubles instate tuition/fees.

Birgeneau/Breslauer accept affluent $50,600foreign students and displace qualified instate Californians (When depreciationof tax funded assets are included (as they should be), out of state and foreigntuition is more than $100,000 and does NOT subsidize instate tuition). Going toCal. is nowmore expensive for instate students than Harvard, Yale.

A shocking picture of inept Cal. senior management: the more non-Californians admitted, the fewer qualifiedCalifornians can be.

With the recommendations of Cal. ChancellorBirgeneau ($450,000 salary), Provost George Breslauer ($306,000 salary) allowedcampus police to use excessive force - rammed baton jabs - on students protestingBirgeneau‘s doubling of instate tuition. Resignation of Birgeneau is necessary,but not sufficient, fire Breslauer.

Send a forceful message that these Cal. senior management decisionssimply aren’t acceptable: UC Board of Regents marsha.kelman@ucop.edu and Calif. State Senator andAssembly member.

909Jeff

HA!

Cal, UCLA, UCSB 50k a year... UC Riverside fifty bucks and a goat.

qdpsteve

That's be okay be me 909. Kids like the ones at UCR who have to (and can afford to) pay for their own educations, besides I'd bet being more down-to-earth and decent people, tend to work harder for them and value them more...

unlike some of the "beautiful people" I've known that were born into silver-spoon gated-community families, got a brand-new BMW for their 16th birthday and whose whole college ride was paid for by Dr. Daddy, not that I know any of them (cough*UCI students*cough). ;-)

909Jeff

Fo sho!