Construction of a Protest – Why UC Students are Striking Today
March 4, 2010 | Lauren Van Mullem
UC Students Are More Than a Little Angry!
You may have heard a few brief reasons why the universities have raised tuition and are planning another 34% increase this fall. But if you’re like me, the whole business of budget cuts and tuition increases is confusing. And the reasons behind the student protests happening today at UC campuses are even more confusing – because it isn’t just that students are angry at having to pay more money. There is a lot more to it than that. Let me break it down for you as it was broken down for me.
I’m not politically inclined by any means and my grasp of this issue was shaky at best. So I asked a politically-minded friend in graduate school at UC Berkeley to explain the reasons behind today’s protest. Now, to preface, he is very much on the student side of the issue, and I was not able to find an administrator on the other side of the issue to interview (they’re probably hiding), but I will try to give a balanced viewpoint.
Why not storm the Capitol?
Today students and many faculty members are striking on UC campuses around the state. Why are they holding protests on campus instead of in Sacramento? After all, Sacramento is where the budget cuts in education are coming from. It’s because they are more angry with the UC leadership than the state government.
Some of the complaints are about the lack of transparency of the financial decision-making process, the lack of consultation with faculty, and the ways in which the leaders have cut the budget: furloughs for faculty and staff, elimination of classes and programs, and increases in tuition. The protesters see the UC leadership, namely Mark Yudof, the President of the UC system, as giving up on state funding without a fight, because they view privatization of the UC system as the only hope.
The protest is also against the increasing privatization of the UC system. Privatization means that instead of the state providing for CA residents’ education – especially for low income students – the UCs take funds from tuition and private donations to operate. Since the state of California is in deep financial trouble, the UC leadership can’t rely on getting enough state money to support the colleges and has found other ways to bring in money. Now this is where the issue gets tricky.
Under Construction Like Always (UCLA)
The issue of construction bonds fuels the fire raging over privatization. Here’s how it works. The University of California system uses student fees and tuition to back construction bonds. They’re taking out loans (bonds) from the government specifically to fund construction projects, and using tuition income as collateral. In a bad economy like this one, they can raise student tuition with the excuse (and true excuse) that they’re getting less money from the state so they need more money from the students. The problem is that while state-supplied funds can only legally be used for education (professors, programs, all the stuff you care about), tuition money can be used for things the state wouldn’t necessarily pay for, like more buildings.
The UC system can privatize the university by raising tuition and starting whatever construction projects they want. The UC has already taken on 1.35 million dollars in debt for 70 new construction projects. For the UC’s side of this, see this article in The Daily Cal.
In “An Open Letter to UC Students,” by Bob Meister, Professor of Political Science and Thought at UC Santa Cruz, he defines the problem as this:
“Construction funding is a reason why the Regent’s want to raise tuition, perhaps the most important reason, but, as students, you are unlikely to go along with big increases to fund UC’s list of construction projects.”
So why construction bonds? Why are campuses constantly building?
Building the Future
One reason the UCs are devoting tuition funds to building might be to attract new students with the newest and best research facilities. One argument is that the research coming out of these facilities will bring in more funds to the universities. A counter argument is that the funds brought in through research could never cover the amount of money put into the facilities in the first place.
Personally, after working for city government for two years, I’m sensing legal loopholes which make construction bonds an attractive way to use tuition funds. Governments put so many restrictions on their grants that even other governmental bodies need to find ways around them. But, that is mere conjecture.
How this Affects You
My contact at UC Berkeley reports that his fellow graduate students are complaining of “increasingly long wait-lists for their undergraduate courses, and undergrad advisors have had to cut their hours. Diversity is affected on campus as lower income students are driven to holding multiple jobs to help pay for school.” Departments don’t have money to pay competitive salaries to lure the best faculty (UC salaries for faculty were already lower than their national counterparts) and graduate students (who teach so much of the undergrad curriculum).
The fact is that the budget cuts at California Universities are resulting in tuition increases, and the students who will be hit the hardest are the middle-class California residents whose parents have just enough money to be disqualified from income-based grants and scholarships. That alone is reason enough to protest.
Problem Solving Skills are lacking
Different taxation policies in California could remedy the budget shortfall, or even different spending priorities (Governor Schwarzenegger proposed cutting funds for prisons and giving the money to education). But, so far, neither the UCs nor the legislators have found a solution that will please everyone – or anyone.
Nice post, though there’s more to this than just paying for construction vs paying for salaries. In my opinion, this is a question of how the UCs can continue to provide the education of the same quality that they have historically provided while making due with far less money coming in from the State of California.
I actually like Bob Meister, and in my experience he is both fair and intelligent, but I think he’s a bit off in his description of the UC’s construction bonds. In 2008, when many of the referenced bonds were issued, the State of California was predicting increased revenues of about $2 billion (ie taking in ~$102 billion, another $2 billion over the previous year’s $~100 billion). But revenues actually fell by about $24 billion. As a result, the State has been cutting back on everything, including the UCs. Most of the bonds that were issued were done when the UCs weren’t expecting the state to cut back on its funding (indeed, it had just received assurances from Governor Schwarzenegger that the state was not only going to not cut funding, but was going to give the UC system additional money to make up for reducing payments to it the previous year). And so far as I know, most of the authorized construction bonds have already been issued (ie the UCs have *already* received cash), so they can’t simply decide to stop construction without ending up with a pile of money that needs to be repaid with interest.
So after that, you get to the quality of education issue. The bottom line is that the UC wants to maintain a high standard when it comes to the quality of education that they provide (and that includes both professors, administration, and facilities; even Meister admits that he’s open to using tuition to finance buildings due to the prestige cutting edge facilities provide). To do that, it needs a certain level of funding. Less funding means that the quality of the education provided will suffer (fewer or less-talented professors, older facilities and equipment, etc). And the State is cutting funding and it’s not likely to dramatically increase funding, given that it’s currently looking at a $40 billion deficit.
So that leaves the UCs two options – allow the quality of the education it provides to decline, or find money elsewhere. It’s chosen to find money elsewhere to maintain its standards, through implementing huge donation drives (UCLA recently raised over a billion in a multi-year donation effort) and increasing student fees and tuition. The UC system is in a zero-sum situation here: either accept diminished quality, or pass on increased costs. It’s chosen to increase costs.
The problem with most of the protesters, in my view, is that they refuse to recognize that this is a dilemma, and want the UC system to maintain both it’s excellent reputation for providing a quality education AND have it remain inexpensive for students to attend. But without that giant state subsidy that the UC has traditionally received, it can’t do both.
It’s 1.35 billion, not million.
Under Construction Like Always!!! UCLA! LOVE IT.
I feel like construction doesn’t immediately impact the current student body; in fact, it just gets in their way with the noise, detours, and some building not being accessible. The ENTIRE time I was in college, the Art Museum on campus was closed. Seriously? You sell me on your campus because you have things like an Art Museum, and it’s closed for four years?
Many student bodies will vote in fee increases in Student Association fees that will begin in 4 years, so that everyone who is at the campus (well, most everyone) won’t be responsible financially for it. Nice, right?
Is the answer as simple as the Regents increasing one step at a time, so in four years the entire increase is complete, and current students aren’t totally screwed?
Great article Lauren. The crowd at Berkeley was really large (starting from like 11:45 on at least) and there was a march to City Hall in Oakland. I also think you did a good job stressing that it’s actually middle-class families who bear the worst burden. I think the cut-off for students to not get any state help is if their families make 75,000 or more. After taxable income that leaves only about 50,000 and tutions is over 10k alone, with room and board pushing the cost to over 20,000. Now, imagine if you had two students at the university. There’d simply be no way to pay for them. And if your students are forced to take out loans that would amount to over 80,000 in loans. Anyone who is a recent grad knows that salaries for university grads are nowhere near high enough to make such a heavy loan amount reasonable.
And just for the record, I personally still feel that the protests should make Sacramento their number one target.
“So that leaves the UCs two options – allow the quality of the education it provides to decline, or find money elsewhere. It’s chosen to find money elsewhere to maintain its standards, through implementing huge donation drives (UCLA recently raised over a billion in a multi-year donation effort) and increasing student fees and tuition. The UC system is in a zero-sum situation here: either accept diminished quality, or pass on increased costs. It’s chosen to increase costs.”
No, but the President of the UC could actually ADVOCATE on behalf of the students versus accepting the cuts so resignedly. His interview with the New York Times was abominable in how he gave virtually no defense of the need for increased state funding.
Is this the interview you’re talking about Omid?
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/09/27/magazine/27fob-q4-t.html
Ya, that’s the one. It was a high-profile stage for him to explain the issue, and instead he responded like a jack-ass. You gotta love the second answer!:
Question: U.C. is facing a budget shortfall of at least $753 million, largely because of cuts in state financing. Do you blame Governor Schwarzenegger for your troubles?
Answer: I do not. This is a long-term secular trend across the entire country. Higher education is being squeezed out. It’s systemic. We have an aging population nationally. We have a lot of concern, as we should, with health care.
Question: And education?
Answer: The shine is off of it. It’s really a question of being crowded out by other priorities.
While I can’t say that I’m a fan of increased fees, I think it’s worth noting that the UC schools have always provided education at top-tier schools at rates that you weren’t able to find anywhere else in the country.
The increased UC fees bring UC tuition to an amount roughly equal (within a few hundred dollars) of the tuition and fees at the other top public schools (UT Austin, UW Madison, etc). The UCs have, until the recent fee hikes, been the best value in top-tier universities anywhere in the country. Even with the increased fees, they’re still among the best values you can get.
But Charles, that speaks more to the inequities in access to higher education on the whole more than it does to the UC’s fair tuition rates. The sad fact is that some 90-odd-percent of the wealth in the country is still tied in some 2 to 3 percent of the population. And with a median national household income of around $45k large swaths of society are forced to either go into perpetual debt just to get an education, or forgo a high-quality university education all-together.
Perpetual debt? I very much doubt that, at least if we’re talking about an undergrad education in a public school. The average cost of tuition at the top-tier public universities seems to be around $10,000 per year, so we’re looking at a $40,000 investment (I’m not including costs for room and board, because they would exist regardless of whether or not a person goes to college). Even with a median national income of $45k, a $40k debt to start with upon graduation (and this is assuming that *all* tuition is paid by a loan, which ignores the availability of grants and scholarships, as well as straight non-borrowed cash) is lower than the average annual income. Debt of less than one’s annual income is neither crippling nor perpetual.
As far as 90% of ‘the wealth’ being held by 2 to 3 percent of the population, I would *love* to see your sources for that claim. A quick check on Wikipedia (I know, not always a reliable source, but I don’t really have the time to research this in depth right now) shows that in the US the top 10% of the population owned 71% of the wealth and the top 1% owned 38%. This is FAR from 2-3% of the population controlling 90% of the wealth. It is noted that the bottom 40% owned less than 1% of the nation’s wealth, but the support system for poor students isn’t being changed (the increased UC fees aren’t being paid by those receiving need-based financial aid in the first place), so I don’t think that end of the equation is all that pertinent to this discussion…
In any case, I would love it if education was the State of California’s number 1 priority outside of essential services (transportation, public safety, etc), and the UCs weren’t faced with declining funding from the State. I’m also not saying that the UC Regents and staff shouldn’t have done a better job in lobbying Sacramento. But the situation is what it is, and in the current political and economic climate in California, it wouldn’t seem prudent for the UCs to rely too heavily on state funding.
This is just off of a cursory glance, but here are some statistics that looks at more than just income, but at the more important category of wealth:
Top 5% own 81% of the wealth.
Top 10 percent own 92% of the wealth.
Bottom 80% own 7% of the wealth. [That figure should be appalling to anyone with a sense of decency]
http://sociology.ucsc.edu/whorulesamerica/power/wealth.html
And what makes you think that people would have the same costs for board even if they didn’t go to school? You’re not going to tell me that the owner of a two bedroom house can make up for the cost of room and board just by hoping that they can get lucky enough to rent out a room in their house, do you? Not everyone is lucky enough to live next to the university of their merit.
And what if a family has two children (like most families do) and makes 65,000/75,000 a year (meaning well above the median income)? No financial aid to be had. Don’t forget that’s pre-tax income levels we’re talking about. Have you ever done the math for the cost of living in the U.S.? Low-end estimates for health insurance costs alone are above 10k/year for a family of four. With an after taxable income of around 50k, you add mortgage payments (i’m guessing but the median yearly payments in California should be around 20k a year) and health care and you’re already down to like 20k left. Need a car, car insurance, gas, electric bills, food and you’re going to hit zero before you blink. How on earth can you be expected to pay even a penny for your child’s expenses? And given the sad state of most public schools in the state (I went to LA unified for several years, it’s not a pretty picture) this kind of living costs are for the most basic services.
And really I stress that because the issue is about the broader extreme discrepancies that exist in our society. The large majority stuck with only 7% of the wealth are forced to undergo such difficulties for the most basic things like access to a high-quality education. Education should be the number thing an equitable society spends its resources on to ensure that all are granted equal opportunity to create a stable living for themselves. An equal opportunity does not mean having low income students (and there is a whole larger discussion about the inadequacies of financial aid to cover the costs of going to school), middle income students and even above middle income (75k range) have to work doubly hard to have the same opportunity to build a stable future for themselves.
At least certainly not so when so much wealth resides in such small groups of people.
Btw, I think it’s likely that we’re from different ideological perspectives in terms of why these income discrepancies exist and how to alleviate them. I think that’s fine, and that might lead to opposing opinions on how to solve the problem of education in the state. But I don’t think that should lead us to diminish the problem, one which is currently being addressed in part by busing in wealthy out of state students to pay higher tuition costs in the place of lower-income California residents.
First, I didn’t include the costs of room and board the cost of education because you, the student, would have to find a way to pay for room and board regardless of whether or not you were at a university. The cost of lodging and food doesn’t change because you enroll in college (or if it does, I don’t believe it changes dramatically, though I haven’t priced out the average costs of dorms vs the prevailing costs of nearby apartments at UC schools).
Second, your estimates on after-tax income are off. Married, jointly-filing couples in California with one dependent earning ~$70-75k would be paying ~$10-11k in income taxes (State and Federal combined), which would leave them at around 60-65k in after-tax income, not the $50k you cite. That alone is a difference of $10k (coincidentally, this is roughly the same amount that the average tuition is set for at top public universities). And since you bring up mortgages (fair enough point), you also need to play fair and note that the interest on mortgages is tax deductable in California, which would result in a higher post-tax amount of money to work with. And let’s not forget that even though there are a large number of people who lack medical coverage or are self-insured, the majority of people in both this country and this state *do* receive health insurance, untaxed, through their employers. Things are not nearly so dire as you claim.
Look; as I have said multiple times, I’m not ecstatic that the UC system is raising its rates, but I am inclined to think that it is the fiscally prudent thing to do if the UC system is going to maintain the quality of education that it has historically provided. These last several posts have seemed to move us farther and farther away from the issue of how the university is supposed to be able to fund itself. Income and wealth disparity are really besides the point here. If you have any proposals about how the University of California should go about fulfilling its role as a university, and how to ensure that it can afford that role, I’d love to hear them; in the mean time, having discussions about income and wealth disparity seems merely, well, academic.
(posted the last one before seeing your last post; I actually tend to agree with you on that one, though like I said, I don’t think that this issue *as it relates to the tuition and student fees of the UCs* is necessarily as problematic as you do, though I am in general in favor of lower tuition and student fees regardless).
Gentlemen – I think a conversation like this cannot, and should not, rationally take place without a six-pack of high quality beer. And maybe some tequila. Just reading these comments is making me thirsty.
There could never be a harm in a six pack. Perhaps one day in L.A., who knows?! I’ll pay, Charles…
As far as the figures are concerned I will add that they are admittedly rough estimates though most averages of education and health care costs tend much higher than the figures I’ve given also (e.g. NYT has the median health care cost at 15k in one article and the average at 20k), all to say that I don’t think I’m far off in my figures (especially given the countless recurring payments that I have not mentioned such as phone, television, internet, depreciation/repairs on automobiles, homeowners insurance, retirement savings, and so on) which all add up to a considerable amount.
And I think that health care costs/savings (whether employmer-provided, or provided through Medicaid in the health care bill that is being passed) do/will alleviate things for many. But I think that that would still leave far too many hard-working above average incomed families to be struggling too much for the simple goal of a quality university education –I would stress the simple goal part here, we’re not talking a luxury.
In that regard to answer your question about a solution, I believe that we must be begin with increased taxation at the state level for the wealthiest few. Coming up with a system to cut the ridiculous amounts we spent on our prison system, as the governor suggested, is something to consider as well (whether it be some form of privatization as conservatives prefer, or even things like de-criminilization/taxation of Marijuana). There are a lot of ways to be creative, but as it stands changing spending priorities in the state is too difficult because of the draconian requirement to have a 2/3 majority in the state legislature. To achieve the taxation goal, I support the grassroots movement under way to gather signatures for a proposition to change the budget law in the state legislature to have a simple majority pass the budget. A simple majority would allow for far more flexibility in how to raise funds/spend them.
[I stressed the income disparities in our discussion because I believe that it is the foundation for an argument for higher taxes on the wealthiest few (and lower for the middle class, even).]
And finally, surely at the least we can all agree that the shine is NOT off education as Mr. Yudof so endearingly suggested.
I’d be more than happy to grab a beer whenever, haha.
I don’t know that an increased state income tax is the answer, though, because it is very easy to move to a different state. California’s income taxes are already quite high as it is (at least in comparison to those of other states), especially for those who don’t own a house (and rent instead) and therefore don’t get the benefit of relatively low property taxes thanks to Prop 13 (though this is somewhat moot due to property values that are *far* higher than the norm throughout the rest of the country, I suppose). As someone who currently pays a significant chunk of his income to the state of California, it’s hard to stay convinced of the merits of staying in the state when the only real benefit compared to a less expensive state (in terms of both taxes and cost of living) is good weather and loyalty to my hometown football team
.
I would rather see a rewrite of the unmangeable and contradictory state constitution than an increase in state income taxes, honestly. As it is, when people go to the polls and vote for $10 billion in bond funding for high speed rail (just one example…), that ends up being $20 billion of funding over the life of that bond (interst roughly doubles the amount borrowed) that must be used for debt service on that bond and not on education. Too much funding, IMO, is non-discretionary and constitutionally mandated to be spent on any number of programs that don’t really provipde a giant benefit to that many people in the first place.
But besides all that, and a bit more back on point, I think that you’re ignoring the ability of the student him or herself to help contribute to the cost of an education. The cost need not be born by a student’s parents alone. Many of my friends in college took out their own student loans, worked their own part time jobs, and/or used their own savings to help pay for school. While I have absolutely nothing against parents paying for their children’s education entirely out of their own pockets, it’s not the only way that things can be done.
Hi Charles, sorry for the delayed response, but I’ve been very busy at school. I only proposed taxes as one solution, a solution that given the income disparities that exist I think is reasonable if levied on the most wealthy. But different people have different ideas on how to approach the problem and I think there may well be better solutions (doing away with direct democracy on the ballots, as you suggested, would certainly save a lot of money in the future; the 100k+ salaries paid to prisoner workers might be another place to save money, the federal government’s wasteful trillions spent on discretionary wars would be another). The point of the protests is to bring people’s attention to the issue. And the governor’s response points to it having been a successful first step.
As to the difficulties facing students and whether or not they’re reasonable obstacles to overcome, we see things differently. I’ve presented the numbers on how middle income families not only can’t pay all of their two children’s education costs–again, two being the average # of kids–but any of it. You rightfully argued that students can and should work. My response as a teacher is that I agree, but the hours I see some of my students have to work relative to others really highlights the question of whether there is equal opportunity in our country.