What Jerry Brown is Really Thinking

The LA Times Blog has a long unedited, monologue by Governor Jerry Brown that gives a great deal of insight into this complicated figure. ...

Regents Retreat

One of the most remarkable aspects of the recent regents’ discussion of the future of the university was the lack of discussion of the quali...

Pension Politics

It looks like the legislature and the governor are close to a deal on pensions. While they have decided to exclude the University of Califo...

The state of UC

The stakes have gone up for Prop 30, the governor's tax initiative, which will cost the UC $375 million in state funding if it does not ...

Student Loan Debt Collectors

According to a report from the National Consumer Law Center, “The U.S. Department of Education (the Department) relies on an increasing num...

How Higher Ed Tax Breaks Serve as Welfare for the Wealthy

As I wrote in a previous blog entry , we may be able to make all public higher ed free, if we just use all current available resources in a ...

UC, the State, and the Post-Stimulus Blues

In his End this Depression Now! , Paul Krugman argues that the best way to get the U.S. economy out of its current slump is for the federal ...

How to Make All Public Higher Ed Free in America (Version 2)

Flagship public universities across the nation are asking for more autonomy so that they can increase tuition and set their own enrollment t...

Understanding Financial Aid: Not Easy

I have always wanted to know what it means when UC says that students would not have to pay tuition if their parents made less than $80,000 ...

The Ugly Face of Austerity: Pepper Spraying the Other

The image of a UC police officer using a weapon with indifference on prone students may become the iconic image of the Age of Austerity. Th...

The UC Budget and the Damage Done

At the last UC Regents meeting, a discussion of the UC budget outlines the following evidence of the deterioration of educational quality i...

Meeting at the White House, the State Tax Initiative, and the UC Regents

On March 27th, I made a presentation at the White House on how to control tuitin increases at American research universities. My first majo...

The New Tax Initiative and UC Funding

There have been a few big changes on the tax initiative front the last few days. As many of you might know, a deal has been made to combine ...

Off-Scale Salaries and the Privatization of the University

While most studies of university compensation look at average salaries, I have stressed that we need to examine wage inequalities. For inst...

March 5th Occupy the Capitol Recap

March 5th brought thousands of students, teachers, labor activists, and occupiers to Sacramento to protest cuts to higher education and push...

The Millionaire’s Tax and the Reversal of the Conservative Revolution

The “Millionaire’s Tax” is being seen as a fight that has national and international implications. As austerity policies spread throughout...

Academic Council Rejects Proposed New Compensation Plan

The UC Academic Council (the system-wide faculty senate) has rejected the new proposed compensation system ( APM 668) , which would “allow ...

Documenting the Failure of the Master Plan

Three recent reports have recently come out that show how the California Master Plan for Higher Education has failed. While this plan work...

The Effects of Budget Cuts on Teaching and Learning in the UC and CSU Systems

Scott Martindale’s article “UCI faculty: Quality eroding as class sizes swell ,” in The Orange County Register does a good job at showing ho...

Obama, Yudof, and the Future of Higher Ed

At the University of Michigan, President Obama made an important speech about his new push to control tuition increases and student debt at...

UCR Students Promote a Bad Tuition Plan as Police Beat Protesters

The UC Regents meeting had a little of everything this week: UCR students came up with a new way to fund the university , a long list of new...

Biden and Romney Talk Higher Ed

National politicians continue to speak about higher education from a perspective of almost total ignorance. In fact, Mitt Romney has actual...

The University as Investment Bank and Questions about State Funding

In response to my last blog entry on President Yudof and the current financing of the UC system, and anonymous commenter wrote the following...