Although I am retired from teaching at SDSU, I stay in touch with some of the faculty there. The fact is that there is enormous waste and inefficiency at all the CA universities, which, if attacked could radically lower costs. Items:
l. Faculty workload as measured by classes taught per year are down roughly one-third over recent decades. (meanwhile, class sizes have expanded–so much for quality education and interaction with students).
2. Campus amenities and buildings are turning into resorts, with pools, entertainment, gyms, hotel-style dorms, etc. This all bedazzles the prospective students–starry-eyed HS seniors, juniors, and their parents, but most students, once in, just want to get their coursework done and get out to start their life. Stop building TajMahals.
3. Above buildings are used about three-fourths of the year, a remnant of our agricultural past when we had to get the crops in. Instead, go to trimesters and run the universities year around. Some students could graduate in three years, skip the often wasted summer vacation. Get variety and enrichment instead by taking a year or two off to work, save up, travel, etc. after HS and before college. My best students were always older and had some life experience. Of course the faculty will scream if they lose their current 8 months of work out of 12.
4. Cut administration in half, then cut the pay of the remainder. That would put the ratio of their numbers relative to faculty and students at about 1970 levels.
Do all this and we could lower tuition radically. The student protesters, egged on by their Professors, need to ask them some tough questions.
