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UC BUDGET PROPOSAL Highlights from the 2001-2002 UC Budget Proposal, approved by the Board of Regents Nov. 16.

• Sufficient funding to keep student fees at their current level, although nonresident tuition would increase by 4.5 percent.
• An increase of $6 million for student retention programs.
• A $4 million increase in finds to help improve community college transfer rates. At least one UC counselor for every three California community colleges is proposed, as well as an expansion of a Web-based information system for prospective transfers.
• $53 million to increase enrollment by 5,700 students.
• $235 million from state general fund for capital improvements – partly to help the university accommodate enrollment growth. Combined with a $200 million bond disbursement, the money will also go to seismic improvements and replacement of obsolete structures. UC Merced, the system’s planned 10th campus, will receive $160 million of the funds.
• A $24 million request to bring staff salaries closer to marketplace levels.

By Benjamin Parke

Daily Bruin Contributor

Although the UC Board of Regents approved next year’s proposed UC budget, it remains to be seen what direction Gov. Gray Davis and the state legislature will take in crafting a final plan .

One of the most formidable issues, however, already seems to be evident. That is UC’s success – or failure – in enrolling students from underrepresented groups after the end of affirmative action.

The UC budget addresses the issue by expanding on outreach efforts where the university works to motivate and prepare underprivileged students for college.

“You have to keep in mind that this is a very significant program now,” said UC spokesman Brad Hayward.

The budget calls for extra money for K-12 outreach in rural areas of the San Joaquin Valley. There will also be more funds for graduate and professional outreach, to get undergraduates to consider graduate school.

Community college transfer programs will expand also – with at least one counselor proposed for every three California community colleges.

In the ’90s, the UC entered into a compact with the governor called the Partnership Agreement, by which the university would be guaranteed funding if it meets certain commitments.

The university has been unable to increase community college transfers by 5 percent a year – a benchmark recently raised to 6 percent – as stated in the partnership the UC has with the state.

But Regent Odessa Johnson recently received a report from the chancellor of California’s community college system, which showed the most recent transfer rate to UC at 6.6 percent, which would mean the university is beginning to fulfill that commitment.

Johnson said the $6 million increase in student retention programs pleased her. As dean of education at Modesto Junior College, she said her background with student services makes her familiar with its importance.

“I hope the regents will continue to strive for more money for student services,” Johnson said. “That is very dear to my heart.”

UC President Richard Atkinson announced a plan to enroll 11,000 additional graduate students in the science and engineering fields over the next decade.

“The UC Student Association is very happy about the funding for graduate education and student retention,” said Blinker Punsalan-Wood, field director for the organization. “We’re confident that the California Legislature will go above and beyond the funding the UC proposed for those two specific items.”

UCSA is calling for a $30 million increase in student retention programs, rather than just the $6 million increase that the UC has proposed. UCSA would also like graduate funding beyond science and engineering – to all disciplines, Punsalan-Wood said.

“We’re trying to take it one step at a time,” said UC spokesman Hayward, regarding the proposal for student retention.

If the first installment is successful, he said, funding for retention might be increased in coming years.

Also, a commission chaired by Regent S. Sue Johnson and UC Provost C. Judson King could recommend the inclusion of other fields, Hayward said.

Melinda Melendez, education advisor to Regent Robert Hertzberg, said she was concerned other fields of graduate study might be missing out.

She talked recently with students and faculty in UCLA’s Native American Studies who said more support was needed for graduate enrollment.

“I don’t think that discussion is over at all,” Melendez said.

As for the success of UC’s outreach programs, Melendez said diversity at the UC has been declining and is “a very serious problem.”

“It’s so difficult to say whether the programs work when those huge augmentations, which were put in the budget in the last two or three years, are just being implemented,” she added.

Assemblyman Tony Cardenas, D-Panorama City, who will take reins of the Assembly budget committee as its new chair next session, also sees a problem with diversity in the UC system.

“The diversity of women and minorities is vastly underserved and declining,” Cardenas said, adding that despite huge investments over past years to address the problem, he is not satisfied.

Without going into specifics, he said he would hold the UC to a high standard.

“I’m going to be all over them when it comes to diversity,” Cardenas said.

The $6 million increase in student retention programs, he said, is “very likely not enough with the system as vast as it is, and the needs as great as they are.”

After the Department of Finance scrutinizes the UC proposal in the coming weeks, the governor will present his budget proposal Jan. 10.

Davis, who has been known for being tight-lipped on whether bills sent to him would be signed or vetoed, is also keeping mum on how his proposal might differ from the UC’s.

“The governor typically doesn’t comment on the budget,” said Steve Maviglio, the governor’s chief spokesman.

But Melendez said the UC proposal carries weight.

“In the end, when the budget is finalized, the university has historically been very successful in influencing the governor to their liking,” Melendez said. “It’s in the legislative process where the UC could get into some trouble.”