OT: Harvard Cheaper than Cal State – So Guess what CA Lawmakers are Doing?

[admin]

California’s public Universities were once the pride of the nation, providing affordable higher education opportunities for the poor and middle class and educating generations of leaders and innovators who drove our economy to be one of the most successful in the world.

Not any more:

Believe it: Harvard cheaper than Cal State

http://www.mercurynews.com/breaking-news/ci_20101265

Top private schools, with their generous aid, have been among the most affordable options for poor students for a few years, but rising tuition has only recently sent California State University and University of California prices shooting past the Harvards and Yales for middle-class students.

This is a sad milestone in our history. So what is our legislature doing to reverse this shameful trend?

A State Workers Bill of Rights

http://blogs.sacbee.com/the_state_worker/2012/02/lawmaker-wants-to-establish-public-employees-bill-of-rights.html
(Thanks to blake for the link.)

SEIU Local 1000 and the Union of American Physicians and Dentists support AB 1655, the “Public Employees Bill of Rights Act.”

• Gives unionized state employees priority over outside contractors and excluded state workers to fill permanent, overtime and on-call positions.
• Sets a one-year statute of limitations for employers to take an adverse action against a state employee. (The current law allows disciplinary actions up to three years after the discovery of fraud, embezzlement or records falsification.)
• Establishes a peer review committee to provide workplace operations input.
• Guarantees that the state won’t impose “unreasonable quotas” on employees.
• Bans extra work created by vacancies, furloughs of layoffs without “fair compensation.”
• Gives priority to workplace safety and health grievances.
• Explicitly bans workplace discrimination.
• Strengthens whistleblower protections.
• Requires employers exercise “preventive and corrective” actions before administering harsher employee discipline.
• Settles grievances in favor of the employee if the employer misses contractual deadlines for response.
• Defines protections and performance and merit evaluation processes for professionally licensed employees.
• Guarantees independent legal representation for professionally licensed workers named as codefendants in litigation against their employers.

Yes, our schools are broke, but we have union-supported lawmakers working to ensure that it is even harder to discipline deadweight public employees.

CA lawmakers need to get their priorities straight.

[Coronita]

Honestly, I think this isn’t such a bad thing…

In other countries, top ranked universities are available to top students at nominal cost..The idea behind this is that if a student is good/smart, cost shouldn’t be an issue. You only have to pay a lot for school if you couldn’t get into a top rank school. We still have it backwards though because now you need to pay a lot for any schools. But at least for some of these private schools, there is some donors and foundations to allow underprivileged talent to get in..

And let’s face it, a lot of the state funded universities shouldn’t be teaching half of the subjects they are teaching.. They aren’t necessarily generating people who are employable in the modern economy… I don’t understand, for example, if state funding supports college “degrees” in things such as shakespearian history or the likes…. how that is necessarily a good use of state dollars to training our younger generation of tomorrow….

Maybe some of the increased costs will make people think twice about what they want to go to college for.

[poorgradstudent]

Princeton, Harvard and Yale have done an admirable job in the past decade offering financial aid to attract top talent. Part of the driving force has been a way to attract more diversity in a meaningful way rather than simply grabbing a few non-whites from upper middle class backgrounds with money and good test scores. Princeton and its competitors have done a good job making their schools more affordable for a certain group of qualified students.

Meanwhile, the voters of California have shown a very clear preference for lower taxes as opposed to funding education. The state budget crisis is the biggest driving force in the rising cost of higher education. Increased demand isn’t helping either; as more Californians seek to improve their education existing resources are being stretched thin.

The only issue I would take with AB 1655 would be the shortening of the statute of limitations for fraud. Most of the other clauses seem reasonable to me, although some would require clarification. As I’ve noted before, most public institutions function on slimmer budgets with far less waste than most private companies.

California spends more on Prisons than Education. So yes, we do need to get our priorities straight.

[jstoesz]

Anyone have a chart for per pupil spending across the last 50 years, inflation adjusted of course?

Just curious, if we are really supporting universities less as a state, or spending more poorly.

I graduated from Cal Poly not that long ago, and my tuition felt dirt cheap (1200 bucks a quarter not including books), but I understand UC’s are more expensive.

Books are a whole other topic.

[Anonymous]

Some data relevant to the comments above:

http://www.lao.ca.gov/reports/2011/calfacts/calfacts_010511.aspx#zzee_link_39_1294170707

Despite recent declines, total funding per full–time equivalent student has generally kept pace with inflation for most of the last several decades at the California Community Colleges and California State University.

Student fees have constituted a growing share of total support over this time period. This growth has been uneven, however. When the state has experienced fiscal difficulties, students have been asked to pay a larger share. In 2009–10, student fees represented 27 percent of total revenues.

In other words, the taxpayers pay about the same per student as they always have (in real dollars.) But, because the total cost of education has gone up, students must pay a bigger share.

Increased demand does not raise prices in this case. Public university education is an exception to basic supply-demand curves. State university prices are not set by markets, they are mandated by the state, fiscal priorities, and fiscal realities. Packing more students into the same classrooms should actually lower costs.

Here’s the crux of it:

Why are we paying the same taxes, but the students have to pay more for the same education? Where is the money going?

[briansd1]

[quote=pri_dk]
Yes, our schools are broke, but we have union-supported lawmakers working to ensure that it is even harder to discipline deadweight public employees.

CA lawmakers need to get their priorities straight.[/quote]

I agree pri_dk.

It’s sickening that larger and larger share of state and local budgets to go public employees while services to needy citizens are getting cut.

I have a theory that politicians are cutting services first in order to “blackmail” citizens into voting for higher taxes.

[all]

[quote=flu]
And let’s face it, a lot of the state funded universities shouldn’t be teaching half of the subjects they are teaching.. They aren’t necessarily generating people who are employable in the modern economy… I don’t understand, for example, if state funding supports college “degrees” in things such as shakespearian history or the likes…. how that is necessarily a good use of state dollars to training our younger generation of tomorrow….

Maybe some of the increased costs will make people think twice about what they want to go to college for.[/quote]

College is supposed to be more than a trade or vocational school.

[all]

[quote=briansd1]
It’s sickening that larger and larger share of state and local budgets to go public employees while services to needy citizens are getting cut.

I have a theory that politicians are cutting services first in order to “blackmail” citizens into voting for higher taxes.[/quote]

Which one is it? The greed of teachers or the cunningness of of politicians that is causing the increase in class size?

[Anonymous]

[quote=captcha]Which one is it? The greed of teachers or the cunningness of of politicians that is causing the increase in class size?[/quote]

That’s a false choice. A logical fallacy and bullshit question.

Do you have an answer?

[Coronita]

[quote=captcha][quote=flu]
And let’s face it, a lot of the state funded universities shouldn’t be teaching half of the subjects they are teaching.. They aren’t necessarily generating people who are employable in the modern economy… I don’t understand, for example, if state funding supports college “degrees” in things such as shakespearian history or the likes…. how that is necessarily a good use of state dollars to training our younger generation of tomorrow….

Maybe some of the increased costs will make people think twice about what they want to go to college for.[/quote]

College is supposed to be more than a trade or vocational school.[/quote]

I understand that. But in recent times, there are far more degree options that are the complete opposite that don’t teach anything remotely to being practical….

If state funds are being used indiscriminately to support wide variety of degrees, much of which doesn’t result in helping people in the future earn some sort of living, than what good does it do for the state to continue fund those programs, when the output of those degrees don’t produce people who can join the workforce to pay their taxes and re-contribute back into the system? It’s a lose lose situation, in which dollars are being spent to get students degrees but don’t make them further employable, and then being unemployable they either have to go elsewhere out of the state or then will need state aid to survive….

That said…. I generally agree that this is a much smaller problem…The much bigger problem is our state does a piss poor job managing its budget…

[all]

[quote=pri_dk]
http://www.lao.ca.gov/reports/2011/calfacts/calfacts_010511.aspx#zzee_link_39_1294170707

…

Why are we paying the same taxes, but the students have to pay more for the same education? Where is the money going?[/quote]

The chart shows ~35% decline for UC system and ~25% for CSU since 10 years ago.

SDSU athletics program generated $30MM less than what the cost was in 2010.

[all]

[quote=pri_dk][quote=captcha]Which one is it? The greed of teachers or the cunningness of of politicians that is causing the increase in class size?[/quote]

That’s a false choice. A logical fallacy and bullshit question.

Do you have an answer?[/quote]

I don’t know. Brian obviously does know, ask him.

[Anonymous]

[quote=captcha]The chart shows ~35% decline for UC system and ~25% for CSU since 10 years ago.[/quote]

Why did you hand-pick a 10 year period for a chart that covers 40 years?

And ignore the text below the chart?

[bearishgurl]

[quote=flu]. . . in recent times, there are far more degree options that are the complete opposite that don’t teach anything remotely to being practical….

If state funds are being used indiscriminately to support wide variety of degrees, much of which doesn’t result in helping people in the future earn some sort of living, than what good does it do for the state to continue fund those programs, when the output of those degrees don’t produce people who can join the workforce to pay their taxes and re-contribute back into the system? It’s a lose lose situation, in which dollars are being spent to get students degrees but don’t make them further employable, and then being unemployable they either have to go elsewhere out of the state or then will need state aid to survive….[/quote]

Completely agree, flu. Being “well-rounded” thru being exposed to “Shakespeare” and “Greek Mythology” (at a cost of abt $3500+ for 6-8 units) does nothing to make one employable. Absolutely nothing.

Taxpayer funds should not be used in this day and age to make students “well-rounded,” either in public university operations or in issuing gov’t backed student loans. Students who want that kind of curriculum can go to private universities and pay the entire (non-subsidized) tuition/fee load from their families’ deep pockets, IMHO.

There are way too many “well-rounded” young people out there now who have no work skills or work experience.

An exception would be a student majoring in English and Literature with a HS teaching credential.

[Anonymous]

[quote=flu]If state funds are being used indiscriminately to support wide variety of degrees, much of which doesn’t result in helping people in the future earn some sort of living, than what good does it do for the state to continue fund those programs, when the output of those degrees don’t produce people who can join the workforce to pay their taxes and re-contribute back into the system? It’s a lose lose situation, in which dollars are being spent to get students degrees but don’t make them further employable, and then being unemployable they either have to go elsewhere out of the state or then will need state aid to survive….[/quote]

I understand your point. As someone with “practical” degrees myself, I can relate.

But the issue we are discussing here is the change in costs that is occurring over the years and the causes of that change.

Perhaps, for example, the ratio of humanities to engineering enrollment has changed over the years, but I’m not familiar with any data describing this sort of thing. In any case, I don’t think curriculum is contributing to budget problems. Maybe Cal State is enrolling too many basketweavers, but that doesn’t explain the change in cost structure over the decades.

[Author]

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