Description: Over the last six years, the state has moved away from its traditional budgetary approach for the University of California (UC) and the California State University (CSU). Notably, the state no longer (1) funds enrollment or inflation, (2) designates as much funding for specific purposes, or (3) reviews UC's capital projects as part of the regular budget process. Instead, the state has been providing the universities with unallocated funding increases and allowing the universities to make funding decisions previously made by the state. Another recent change to the state's budgetary approach is its inclusion of performance measures (though the state has not yet determined how to factor these measures into its budget decisions). Despite these changes to the traditional budgetary approach, one aspect that has not changed in recent years is the state's ad-hoc approach to student tuition. We recommend the Legislature return to using its traditional approach to funding the universities but make some refinements. Specifically, we recommend the Legislature resume funding enrollment but set enrollment expectations for different types of students and for a longer time horizon. We also recommend the Legislature fund a new freshman eligibility study. Further, we recommend the Legislature resume funding inflation and assume students and the state share in cost increases. To address concerns about the traditional budgetary approach's lack of emphasis on efficiency, we recommend the Legislature use its recently adopted performance measure relating to spending per degree to monitor the universities' productivity. We also recommend the Legislature review capital projects for the universities through the regular budget process.