F is for Failure
STATEMENT
to The Regents of the University of California, meeting July 14, 2010
by Charles Schwartz, Professor Emeritus of Physics, UC Berkeley
F is for Failure
It should be clear that the UC Commission on the Future has been a failure. Regent Gould and President Yudof have spent the last year rooting about in the underbrush of the University but have failed to come up with any plausible ideas on how to solve the long-term financial problem. The reason is simply that they never took the trouble to state openly and clearly what the problem is. It is not about funding for undergraduate education; it is about funding for the core research mission of the university.
The only path they offer will be a continued escalation of the tuition that you charge undergraduate students – although they are already paying for the entire cost of their own education – and that is how this great public university joins the club of private universities.
Let me show you another aspect of this same disease – the failure to provide a clear and truthful picture of how UC spends its money. I’ll quote from a recent article published by Jon Coupal, the president of the Howard Jarvis Taxpayers Association.
“As California faces an unprecedented budget crisis, students at California colleges have been asked to pay a greater share of the total cost of their education, most of which is still borne by taxpayers. …taxpayers pay 60-70% of the cost of CSU and UC students’ education, without even counting financial aid.”
Those numbers are false; but they come right from here – from the Regents’ Budget, which is published by the UC President and his staff.
How can you hope to gain public support when you don’t tell the truth about where the money goes? This is the main duty of the Board of Regents; and you are all failing to meet your public obligations.
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for further related commentary, I recommend Chris Newfield’s latest post at
http://utotherescue.blogspot.com/2010/07/unhappy-anniversary.html