UC's Yudof Vows to "Keep Tuition Down," Examine Online
Courses
Brown was as blunt as ever as he sat through six-and-a-half
hours of meetings Wednesday:
Brown: "Let's get real.
I'm proposing 5% more in your budget. You're proposing
11.6%. How do you make up the gap?"
Not by tuition increases, he's warned - not if the UC wants to
keep getting more money from the state. Instead, he wants the
system to become more efficient and offer online courses.
UC President Mark Yudof is promising to meet the governor's
challenges:
Yudof: "We need to increase
access; lower our marginal cost - that is, it costs less money per
degree per course, or however you want to measure it; live within
our means - and our means are increasingly limited; keep tuition
down; and to live with the realities of a higher student/faculty
ratio."
But, Yudof says, it won't be easy - given the nearly $1
billion of state budget cuts already in
place.
A new study from the Pew Center on the States shows 60 major
U.S. cities are behind on their pension and retiree health care
obligations by more than 200 billion dollars combined.
Pew researcher David Draine says the four California cities he
looked at are a "mixed bag."
Draine: "Los Angeles is one of
the only two cities we looked at that have been doing well in both
pensions and retiree health benefits, or relatively well. San
Francisco - among the California cities - is also one of the top
performers, but they've fallen short in their retiree health care
promises. And then San Diego and San Jose face major funding
gaps, but with recent reforms, they may have the ability to begin
to close those gaps over time."
Draine also says cities that continued to make pension
contributions during the recession tend to have retirement funds in
stronger financial shape than cities that didn't.
