The 2023-24 Budget: Higher Education Overview

January 31, 2023 - In this brief, we provide an overview and initial analysis of the Governor’s higher education budget plan.

The 2022-23 Budget: California State University

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.

^[PDF] The 2023-24 Budget: University of California

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.

The 2022-23 Budget: Overview of the Spending Plan

October 12, 2022 - Each year, our office publishes the California Spending Plan to summarize the annual state budget. This publication provides an overview of the 2022-23 Budget Act, gives a brief description of how the budget process unfolded, and then highlights major features of the budget approved by the Legislature and signed by the Governor.

^[PDF] The 2023-24 Budget: Student Housing

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.

^[PDF] The 2022-23 Budget: Analysis of Major UC Proposals

February 2, 2022 - This brief analyzes the Governor’s major budget proposals for the University of California, with a focus on base support, enrollment, and deferred maintenance. Also, see our companion piece to this report: The 2022‑23 Budget: UC Climate-Related Proposals.

The 2023-24 Budget: College of the Law, San Francisco

March 8, 2023 - The Governor’s budget proposes to increase base General Fund support for the University of California College of the Law, San Francisco (UC Law SF) by $2.2 million (12 percent) in 2023‑24. After accounting for other revenue increases (primarily from student tuition revenue), UC Law SF’s total ongoing core budget would increase by $5.8 million (7.7 percent). We recommend the Legislature consider the base General Fund augmentation of 12 percent an upper bound. The proposed percentage increase is the largest among the education segments. Additionally, we recommend the Legislature reject the Governor’s proposal to provide one‑time funding for the school’s Urban Alchemy program. Given campus safety is part of the school’s core operations, we recommend program costs be covered using the school’s core ongoing funding.

^[PDF] Addressing Capital Renewal at UC and CSU

January 5, 2023 - In this brief, we provide background on capital renewal at UC and CSU, assess the current approach to addressing capital renewal, make recommendations to better plan and budget for capital renewal, and raise other related issues for consideration.

The 2021-22 Budget: Various CSU Proposals

March 9, 2021 - This post analyzes four of the Governor’s budget proposals for the California State University (CSU). Specifically, the post covers proposals relating to CSU Stanislaus’s off-campus center in Stockton, the Computing Talent Initiative based at CSU Monterey Bay, CSU’s ability to transfer funds among its accounts, and summer-term student financial aid.

The 2023-24 Budget: Judicial Branch Budget Proposals

February 10, 2023 - This brief provides our analysis of a proposal seeking court-specific resources for the Community Assistance, Recovery, and Empowerment (CARE) Program and a proposal to address the solvency of the State Court Facilities Construction Fund.

The 2022-23 California Spending Plan: Higher Education

October 4, 2022 - This post summarizes the state’s 2022-23 spending package for higher education. It is part of our Spending Plan series. In this post, we provide a short overview of the state’s higher education spending package, then cover spending for the California Community Colleges (CCC), California State University (CSU), University of California (UC), student financial aid, student housing, and California State Library.

The 2022-23 Budget: Overview of the Governor's Budget

January 13, 2022 - On January 10, 2022, Governor Newsom presented his proposed state budget to the Legislature. In this report, we provide a brief summary of the proposed budget based on our initial review. In the coming weeks, we will analyze the plan in more detail and release several additional budget analyses.

Update (1/21/22): Includes a corrected estimate of Governor’s Budget proposals that are excludable under the State Appropriations Limit (SAL).

^[PDF] The 2021-22 Budget: UC Programs in Medical Education

February 26, 2021 - This post analyzes the Governor's proposal to provide a General Fund augmentation to the University of California's Programs in Medical Education. These programs provide medical education focused on health equity and clinical experiences focused on underserved communities.

Assessing UC and CSU Enrollment and Capacity

January 19, 2017 - Chapter 22 of 2015 (SB 81, Committee on Budget and Fiscal Review) requires our office to assess whether the state should construct new University of California (UC) or California State University (CSU) campuses, taking a statewide perspective for UC and a regional perspective for CSU. In making our assessment, the legislation requires our office to consider a variety factors, including enrollment demand and capacity. We project university enrollment over the next eight years based on existing state policy and growth in the state's public high school graduates. In 2024-25, we project UC will enroll 11,000 more resident students (5 percent) than in 2016-17. We find the system could accommodate at least triple that amount of growth by increasing use of its existing facilities and constructing new facilities according to its already developed long-range plans. We project CSU enrollment in 11 regions across the state, with projected growth totaling 15,000 students (a 4 percent increase) in 2024-25 over 2016-17 levels. We find the system could accommodate more than 200,000 additional students by increasing use of its existing facilities and constructing new facilities according to already developed long-range plans. Given UC and every CSU region could accommodate projected enrollment through current or planned capacity, we conclude that new campuses are not warranted at this time.