Financial Crisis Hits Home: Berkeley Struggles to Maintain Academic Quality
With attempts to lessen the severity of California’s state budget, all UC campuses are being subjected to horrendous budget cuts that will seriously impact the quality of education and student life. The state government plans to cut over $100 million across the entire UC system.
According to Nathan Brostrom, UC Berkeley’s vice chancellor for administration, the university gets about 27% of its funds from the state, as opposed to receiving over 50% thirty years ago. While receiving more robust funding sources over the past 30 years, including increases in research funds, student fees, and private philanthropy, Brostrom claims that the university has become somewhat less vulnerable to state cuts. Cal’s non-state sources of funding, however, may not be enough to stop the California budget cuts from affecting academic quality. The new state budget will cut university funding by 10%, including $65.5 million in mid-year cuts and $50 million in cuts for 2009-10.
UC Berkeley Chancellor Robert Birgeneau claims that he will keep the university’s academic quality up to par with what is expected of the number one public university in the world. Cal was not surprised when it was forced to cut its budget. The campus administration anticipated the possibility of further reductions in the budget and made plans to handle the situation in the most efficient way possible. In December 2008, Birgeneau sent out a campus email warning everyone of what may come of the budget cuts, including staffing cutbacks, departmental cuts and the resumed contributions to the employee retirement plan. In order to close the funding gap, Birgeneau plans to rely on revenue generation and expense reduction, among other factors.
Realistically, however, it is hard to believe that academic quality will not be affected. With every cut, there is an impact. Over the past year, over 11 reading and composition classes have been canceled, while a number of physical education classes are no longer in the works either. Science departments, including molecular and cell biology, physics and chemistry, saw about a five-percent cut.
The UC system is planning to reduce this year’s freshman class enrollment by 2,300 and community colleges are curtailing their enrollment by 22,000. The federal government has passed the $787 billion American Recovery and Reinvestment Act, from which California public schools and universities will receive $11 billion. Depending on how much the university receives from this act, the stimulus may allow Cal to bounce back from this year’s budget cuts.
One of the primary concerns of the university amidst the financial crisis is the school’s affordability to low-income students. As the number of minority applicants has increased for first-year students and transfer students from community colleges, Birgeneau specifically plans to keep university costs low for those in need.
Thanks to the $787 billion American Recovery and Reinvestment Act, Pell Grant awards have increased from $500 to $5,350, allowing UC Berkeley to bolster financial aid and ease the stress of budget cuts. In order to receive a Pell Grant, a student’s annual family income must be less than $45,000. Of the 25,000 undergraduate students at UC Berkeley, nearly 8,000 receive Pell Grants. UC Berkeley has more students on Pell Grants than all the Ivy League schools combined, a fact that Birgenueau says he takes great pride in.
The university offers many affordable programs, which are made possible by the school’s direct lending policy, where students receive their loans directly from the university instead of a lending bank. The campus still has to be resourceful, however, and if budget cuts persist, private funding will no longer be able to save the day when a public university is in need of funding. Among other priorities of the chancellor are the international students. According to New America Media, Birgeneau stated, “When I first came to Berkeley I thought the number of international students was too low. So for the sake of the education of our students, we are increasing progressively the number of international students at the school.” The main concern of UC Berkeley officials, including Vice Chancellor for Student Affairs Harry Le Grande, is sustaining the public education system, especially grades K-12. Le Grande states, “Those students are our pipeline, and if we fall, the rest of the country will follow suit.”
Popularity: 32%
I’m disgusted with Chancellor Birgeneau’s diversity pledges to insure that low income will continue to get their free rides. I am repelled with the discrimination against middle-class white males. Prop 209 makes that illegal….state funds should be with held until he practices equal treatment & equal opportunity for all. Many middle class parents are suffering with reduced jobs that don’t allow for helping with college. It’s not fair to those kids who like the opportunity to attend too. Discriminating against middle class white males is both disgusting & illegal…their parents current situation is not of their doing. I have 3 college age males who have the grades & would like to attend & study MATH & science…but they aren’t fortunate enough to be poor enough to satisfy Birgeneau’s goal of providing navel studies to others. We pay him SO much, he has NO IDEA of what it is for middle class to survive in the BAY AREA today. He’ll have plenty of rich who’ll pay the freight for themselves & the ‘poor’….hut sadly, the middle-class white males get tossed aside. Society will suffer for that discrimination.
$3 Million Extravagant Spending On Consultants By UCB Chancellor Birgeneau: Work Can be Done Internally. UC President YUdof has a UCB Chancellor that should do the high paid work he is paid for job. ‘World class’ smart executives like Chancellor Birgeneau need to do the analysis, hard work and make the difficult decisions of their executive job to trim $150 million.
Where do consulting firms like Bain ($3,000,000 consultants) get their recommendations?
From interviewing the senior management that hired them and will be approving their monthly consultant fees and expense reports. Remember the nationally known auditing firm who said the right things and submitted recommendations that senior management wanted to hear and fooled government oversight agencies and the public?
Mr. Birgeneau’s executive officer performance management responsibilities include “inspiring innovation and leading change.” This involves “defining outcomes, energizing others at all levels and ensuring continuing commitment.” Instead of demonstrating his capacity to fulfill his executive accountabilities, Mr. Birgeneau outsourced them. Doesn’t he engage University of California and University of California Berkeley (UCB) people at all levels to help examine the budget and recommend the necessary trims? Hasn’t he talked to Cornell and the University of North Carolina – which also hired Bain — about best practices and recommendations that might apply to UCB cuts?
No wonder the faculty and staff are angry and suspicious. Three million dollars is a high price for Californians to pay when a knowledgeable ‘world-class’ Chancellor is not doing his job.
Stop the freewheeling 3,000,000 spending on consultants and do the work of your job President Yudof & UCB Chancellor Birgeneau: work for your pay
Why does one of the top universities in the world have to spend $3 million of taxpayer money for consultants to do what should be done internally by UCB Chancellor Birgeneau?
Who teaches auditors how to audit? Do UC professors not have the knowledge to perform what they teach?
Having firsthand knowledge of consulting, I know one cardinal rule, “Don’t bite the hand that pays you.”
In a nutshell, we have a high-paid, skilled UCB Chancellor who is unable or unwilling to do the job he is paid to do. Why do we wonder that UC and California are in a financial crisis!
I’m sure taxpayers would not object to the $3 million payout if the money is reimbursed by taking money from the UCB Chancellor’s salary over the next 10 years.
Stop the spending of $3,000,000 on consultants by President Yudof and the UCB Chancellor and do the job impartially and internally These days ever dollar in higher education counts!
Respectfully
ACT NOW! Contact Chairwoman Budget Sub-committee on Education Finance Assemblywoman Carter 916.319.2062 and tell her to stop the $3,000,000 spending by Chancellor Birgeneau for consultants.
UC Berkeley’s recent elimination of popular sports programs highlighted endemic problems in the university’s management. Chancellor Robert Birgeneau’s eight-year fiscal track record is dismal indeed. He would like to blame the politicians in Sacramento, since they stopped giving him every dollar he has asked for, and the state legislators do share some responsibility for the financial crisis. But not in the sense he means.
A competent chancellor would have been on top of identifying inefficiencies in the system and then crafting a plan to fix them. Compentent oversight by the Board of Regents and the legislature would have required him to provide data on problems and on what steps he was taking to solve them. Instead, every year Birgeneau would request a budget increase, the regents would agree to it, and the legislature would provide. The hard questions were avoided by all concerned, and the problems just piled up….until there was no money left.
It’s not that Birgeneau was unaware that there were, in fact, waste and inefficiencies in the system. Faculty and staff have raised issues with senior management, but when they failed to see relevant action taken, they stopped. Finally, Birgeneau engaged some expensive ($3 million) consultants, Bain & Company, to tell him what he should have been able to find out from the bright, engaged people in his own organization.
From time to time, a whistleblower would bring some glaring problem to light, but the chancellor’s response was to dig in and defend rather than listen and act. Since UC has been exempted from most whistleblower lawsuits, there are ultimately no negative consequences for maintaining inefficiencies.
In short, there is plenty of blame to go around. But you never want a serious crisis to go to waste. An opportunity now exists for the UC president, Board of Regents, and California legislators to jolt UC Berkeley back to life, applying some simple check-and-balance management principles. Increasing the budget is not enough; transforming senior management is necessary. The faculty, students, staff, academic senate, Cal. alumni, and taxpayers await the transformation.
University of California Berkeley (Cal) ranking drops. In 2004, for example, the London-based Times Higher Education ranked Cal the second leading research university in the world, just behind Harvard; in 2009 that ranking had tumbled to 39th place
Can University of California be saved from Chancellor Birgeneau ($500,000 salary)?
UC adamantly rejects Calif. Gov. Brown’s Budget.
Deeds speak louder than words.
Gov. inauguration $100,000.
UC Chancellor Birgeneau $3,000,000 for consultants to do WORK of his job & of his MANY vice-chancellors
Take that Gov!…says UC Berkeley Chancellor Birgeneau’s action
University of California