California's universities in trouble

Before the fall

California’s financial crisis jeopardises one of the world’s finest universities

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Readers' comments



Math Professor:

Can I suggest that spend a little time walking around your own campus if you are indeed on the UCSB faculty?

I was an academic at a number of universities around the world for a bit over two decades before I decided that I'd had enough and went into consulting. When monstrous things are happening on your campus it is really easy to meet your classes and seminars and assiduously ignore everything else. I was very good at that.

Best wishes,



"WE ARE EATING OUR SEED CORN". Maybe. However, I believe the phrase "reaping what you have sown" is a more appropriate phrase to describe the the situation in the California university system. I refer any reader to the special report on Texas where they refer to the recent history of california and describe the progression of a conservative state that promotes business and low taxes to a leading liberal state government that has been overrun by small interest groups and district splicing that has created lack of competition for state representatives. All of this has lead to the eventual brankrupting of a once prosperous state. The educators of California no doubt have to take some responsibility especially considering their infamous faculty of leftish leaning professors.
- University of California-Davis, Class of 2005

Vinnie from Tewksbury

The voters of California have been their own worst enemy. They continue to pass propositions to spend money the state does not have. Whatever happened to the $10,000,000,000 for the biotech initiative? How many biotech companies are now moving to the golden state?

California can no longer expect live the high life that it has for decades. States must have balanced budgets. Maybe tuition will have to increase in the state university system.


As a recent Berkeley graduate (2004), your article seems overly simplistic but is in no way a surprise. I make a number of points.

The budget cuts and tuition hikes have been present at Cal and the other UC's since I first entered the UC system in 2001. Tuition was surprisingly low at that time for a state like CA, given the higher cost of living.

I agree with the commenter who claimed there is fat to be trimmed in some of the colleges. But this has to be done carefully so as to maintain the high academic quality. This will be difficult given the entrenched nature of some professors and Depts. Combining depts has been a longstanding method to reduce costs. The ESPM program and Integrative Biology programs at UC Berkeley are prime examples.

This article fails to point out that the University of California most recently opened a new campus, UC Merced, in part to meet the growing demand for higher education in California. If the UC system was in such dire straights, how could it afford a new multibillion dollar institution stocked with the best and brightest professors?

This article also falsely presumes that the loss of top faculty is new outcome of the recent budget cuts. In fact this has been a longstanding occurrence and UC faculty and departments have been being robbed by other top schools for many years. This is the academic arms race for accolades and research dollars.

While I think greater privatization is the unfortunate outcome of the longstanding issues described above, I don't that the inductive reasoning of this article, using one example from the Astrophysics dept at UCSC, describes the complexity of the situation well. Some depts are growing, some have plateaued, and some are atrophying.


It seems you take a rather isolated observation and then apply it to the entire UC system in a wholly unjustified and unresearched way. Other than your casual observation on the way to the toilet at UCSB, what evidence do you have that the "UC system is overrun with otherwise unemployable activists posing as academics"? Did you meet any such faculty when you were at UCSB or are you just extrapolating? You may know that UC employs several thousand faculty in all manner of diverse disciplines and from all sorts of different backgrounds so your comments make no sense and just sound like sour grapes to me.

Perhaps the most important questions are: "did your son get a good undergrad education at UCSB, did it prepare him to be competitive in his future career, was it reasonably affordable compared to other options that he might have had and did he enjoy his time at UCSB? If the answer to those questions is Yes, Yes, Yes and Yes then maybe you have little cause for complaint. If the answers are No, No, No and No then feel free to get up on a soapbox and let the world know. However, as the state cuts UC budgets there will be more and more students who will answer those questions with No. Indeed, many UC faculty are throwing their hands up in frustration as the state slashes our support which in turn compromises our ability to teach. The reason that students came to UC from all over the world is because of the quality of the education they receive but if that is compromised then UC will become a 2nd rate institution.

Finally, if it is any consolation to you, I will be out on unpaid furlough 3 days a month for the next year thanks to the state budget cuts to UC. I hear that my local McDonalds is hiring part-time staff, which might help me make enough for my mortgage payment. Do you want some professorial fries with that.....???


The UC system has been lumbered with a crushing overburden of "studies" programmes. My son graduated UC Santa Barbara in June. While at his commencement ceremony he and I ducked into one of the classroom buildings looking for a toilet. I saw a very interesting sign on one of the doors, viz, "The New Racial Studies Department". I asked my son if that implied that there is an "old" Racial Studies Department. My son confirmed that indeed there was and that it was still running.

The UC system has become overrun with otherwise unemployable activists posing as academics. They all need to be fired and learn how to do a job for which they are qualified like asking "do you want fries with that". Unfortunately, that's not likely. The UC system decided to meet their budget shortfall by simply raising tuition 15% in one go this fall. I'm very glad my son is out of all that.


Thanks for your swift response and your comment, which is very well taken.
Much appreciated.

Johnny Spotchek

I apologize for the offense taken from my comments. I did not intend to imply a direct employment of university resources on specific business projects.

Douglas of California

The quote from UC Santa Cruz with its reputation should serve as a reminder that everything in California's public sector cries out for reform, but the only cries politicians hear and the media report are cries for more money. Yes, the per student funding may be going down, but what was the increase in affirmative action admissions? Was there an increase in the number of students pursuing dubious and unemployable degrees? Take a quick tour of any UC Campus and it won't take long to spot a sign directing you to some building that is the result of politically correct spending choices.

It is certain that the cuts will hurt valuable programs, but don't bother us taxpayers if there isn't going to be any reform.


Johnny Spotchek
I can assure you that UC scientists do not "produce research studies for big business". UC scientists conduct research for publication in the public domain in academic journals and at meetings and conferences. You only have to look in the physics, chemistry, biology literature etc to see the vast amount of research that UC publishes in the public domain. Moreover, the Nobel Foundation does not award Nobel Prizes (of which UC faculty have received the most of any public institution) for "research studies for big business". Although some of that research may be funded by business interests the vast majority is funded by the federal government through NIH, NSF etc. The research that is funded by business is subject to rigorous conflict of interest rules that cannot undermine academic freedom of speech and the right to publish research in the public domain. Finally, at UC we take enormous pride in training undergraduate and graduate students to be competitive in the professional world. Hence, I regard your comment as a total slander on the UC system and imho, it would be preferable if you would get your facts straight before your venture your opinion on matters of which you are apparently completely ignorant.

Johnny Spotchek

Being the finest research university has very little to do with the quality of the undergraduates it produces. It does have very much to do with the amount of corporate donations it receives, most of which need not be governed by any real amount of prudence in how they are spent.

Publicly funded research institutions are the backbone of core basic research that the pharma industry no longer really does for themselves. They do, however, continue to apply for patents based upon publicly funded research, and fleece the public during their patent period. So, for the taxpayer, it's a Win/Win...

If universities focused on preparing graduates for real world jobs instead of producing research studies for big business, maybe they wouldn't have bloated their union/tenured faculty, most of whom teach maybe one course a semester.

Much like the healthcare industry, it needs to crumble into pieces before it's rebuilt with it's fundamental principles in mind. Unfortunately, like the healthcare industry, it pulls the economy down with it.


Its been the same story all over the western world with higher education for years, certainly since the beginning of the 90s. Why is this news? State spending is considered bad in general, but health spending has been crowding out all other public spending across the western world. Ergo most spending declines in real terms. Particularly so with education which is doubly hit with the post baby boom generation. So now news here


I read this article, as I fill out my application to San Francisco State.

I am, to say the least, discouraged.



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