January 26, 2022 - This brief provides an overview and initial assessment of the Governor’s higher education budget package.
March 9, 2023 - This brief analyzes the Governor’s proposals to delay certain funding for the Higher Education Student Housing Grant program and California Student Housing Revolving Loan program.
January 30, 2024 - In this brief, we provide an overview and initial analysis of the Governor’s higher education budget plan.
February 12, 2013 - In the 2013-14 Governor's Budget Summary, the Governor expresses major concerns about higher education in California. Most notably, the Governor is concerned about escalating higher education costs, funding models that promote neither efficiency nor effectiveness, and generally poor student outcomes. To address these issues, the Governor lays out a multiyear budget plan. The main component of the plan is large annual unallocated base increases for all three higher education segments. The Governor loosely links these base increases with an expectation the segments improve their performance. Although we believe the Governor’s budget plan has drawn attention to some notable problems, we have serious concerns with several of his specific budget proposals. By providing the segments with large unallocated increases only vaguely connected to undefined performance expectations, the Governor cedes substantial state responsibilities to the segments and takes key higher education decisions out of the Legislature’s control. We recommend the Legislature take a different approach and allocate any new funding first for the state’s highest existing education priorities, including debt service, pension costs, and paying down community college deferrals. If more funding is provided, then we recommend the Legislature link the additional funding with explicit enrollment and performance expectations.
February 7, 2023 - In this brief, we analyze the Governor’s budget proposals relating to the California State University. We cover proposals relating to core operations, enrollment, and capital outlay budget solutions.
February 15, 2022 - This brief analyzes the Governor’s budget proposals for the California State University. The brief covers base support, enrollment, foster youth programs, deferred maintenance, and climate-related initiatives.
February 18, 1998 - Much has been written of the growing enrollments in California's community colleges, California State University (CSU), and University of California (UC). Various reports characterize these future increases as the "baby boom echo" or "Tidal Wave II." We find that (a) Projected Enrollment Growth Is Not of Tidal-Wave Proportions, and (b) Enrollment Growth Is Not an Unmanageable Force.
January 24, 2011 - The Governor’s budget solutions in higher education include unallocated General Fund reductions of $500 million for the University of California (UC) and the California State University (CSU). As we discuss in our recent publication, The 2011‑12 Budget: Higher Education Budget in Context, while these reductions are large, in our view they do not appear unreasonable given the size of the state’s budget problem, and considering that the current-year budget imposed no program reductions on the universities. Despite some new revenue from tuition increases, the universities would have to implement a range of service reductions affecting students, faculty, and staff to absorb these reductions. This brief provides our recommendations for mitigating the impact of the reductions on UC’s and CSU’s educational missions.
February 1, 1998 - we project that total enrollments in 2005 will be 2,142,000. This represents annual growth of 0.3 percent from 1991 to 2005. Such growth, rather than of tidal wave proportions, would actually be dramatically lower than the 2.7 percent annual growth in enrollments experienced by the three segments between 1970 and 1991.
February 27, 2015 - In this report, we provide an overview of the Governor’s higher education budget. We then review the segments' performance in certain key areas and assess the degree to which the segments require enrollment growth funding, base funding increases, and facilities funding. We find the segments have improved performance in some areas but additional improvement is needed. We find little to warrant additional enrollment growth at UC and CSU, and available data indicate CCC likely will not use all the growth funding provided in 2014-15. We recommend against unallocated budget increases, instead recommending that the Legislature link base increases to a cost-of-living adjustment and any additional increases to specified state priorities. We review several facility proposals and make various related recommendations, including recommending the Legislature establish state facility priorities and require the segments to submit a report describing how they plan to eliminate their maintenance backlogs.
February 8, 2012 - The Governor’s budget reduces funding for state financial aid programs by over $300 million. At the same time, it generally maintains or augments funding for the public colleges and universities in 2012-13; reduces budgetary controls on their spending; and commits to annual funding increases in subsequent years, contingent on their meeting undefined performance targets. Furthermore, higher education funding would be subject to “trigger cuts” if the Governor’s proposed tax increases are not approved by voters in November. This report makes a number of recommendations for legislative consideration, including alternative ways to reduce financial aid costs that would have better outcomes for students and the state. The report also urges caution in relaxing budgetary controls in higher education, and identifies alternative ways to structure trigger cuts in order to reduce uncertainty and disruption in higher education programs.
February 15, 2023 - This brief analyzes the Governor’s budget proposals for the University of California. It covers the Governor’s proposals relating to core operations, enrollment, capital projects, and new transfer requirements.
February 1, 2021 - This report analyzes the Governor’s major budget proposals for the universities, covering base funding, enrollment, students’ basic needs, faculty professional development, and deferred maintenance.