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Schools

Classes Begin with Tighter Belts at UC Berkeley

Chancellor Robert Birgeneau said at a Wednesday press conference that despite a great loss of state funding, the university will continue to serve its students well.

With the beginning of classes this week, UC Berkeley Chancellor Robert Birgeneau faces a daunting challenge — educating the university’s 36,000 students with hundreds of millions of dollars less in state support than he was getting in 2004, the year he took his post.

“We continue to be in challenging times for higher education,” Birgeneau said at a Wednesday morning press conference.

“The state is a really minor partner in our budget,” he said, noting that when he became chancellor, the state was the primary funder of the university. If the state continued funding UC Berkeley at the level it did in 2004, the university would have received $600 million this school year. With additional state cuts expected in December, the school will receive $220 million in funding this year, he said.

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Birgeneau put the blame squarely on the state legislature. “This is a disgrace,” he said. “It is extraordinarily bad judgment on the part of people in Sacramento to disinvest in higher education at the level that they have. The young people are the future of California.”

The chancellor didn’t spare the federal government. “United States is now the only western G-20 country where the government does not invest directly in its flagship public universities,” he said. “Our great universities are a national resource. Their support cannot be left to the states alone.”

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Increases in have offset some of the university's deficit. California residents will pay $14,000 in tuition and fees, plus room and board. Out-of-state and international students pay about $37,000. Birgeneau underscored, however, that admitting more out-of-state students to help make up for the university's lost funding has not hurt admissions for California residents. In 2004, there were 20,500 students at UC Berkeley who identified as California residents. “This year it will be 21,500,” he said.

Responding to a question, the chancellor defended the $140 million in merit pay being awarded to some faculty and staff members, describing it as necessary to retain top talent.

While the university laid off 150 employees last year, “we do not expect a significant number of layoffs [this year],” he said. He explained that, as part of the university's "Operational Excellence" program, the university intends to become more efficient by sharing resources between departments — so that one person does a similar function for multiple departments rather than just one.

He said the program will result in fewer people with more skills working at the university, adding that many future jobs will be eliminated as individuals retire. Ultimately the savings is expected to reach $75 million per year in administrative costs, he said.

Asked about the university’s negotiations with its labor unions over requiring workers to pay a greater percentage of their health care costs, he responded that labor negotiations were in the hands of the university's Office of the President.

Despite the university’s economic woes, there are a large number of students from families earning less than $45,000, Birgeneau said; 56 percent of UC Berkeley students receive federal grants intended for low-income students. In fact, the university admits more low-income students than all the Ivy-League schools combined, he said.

Paying for an education at UC Berkeley remains a challenge for middle class students whose families earn $80,000 to $120,000, he said. This year, these students will receive financial aid of around $3,500.

The chancellor further lauded the passage of AB130, the measure that will allow some undocumented students in California to pay the in-state tuition rate instead of out-of-state tuition. He said he is working on fundraising for private scholarships for these students and is supporting the passage of AB131, which will give these students access to publicly-funded financial aid.

Birgeneau said that a "major disappointment" this year is that only three percent of the freshmen students entering the university identify as black. He said the university has added funding to its programs that outreach to black students.

Harry LeGrande, vice chancellor of student affairs, was also present at the press conference. “It’s not that we’re not admitting [black students],” he said. “It’s just that they have so many options that they don’t come and in most cases it has to do with the financial packages that they’re able to get from competitor campuses.”

“Our private counterparts can do race-based initiatives to fund those students,” he explained. Public universities cannot, he said, because public funds cannot be spent on affirmative action. LeGrande said the university admitted 419 black freshmen, but ended up with 119.

On the plus side, Birgeneau said the campus's five athletic programs that were slated for elimination have been funded by private donations of $21 million, and are safe for now. Foreign language programs have also been added. And the university continues to score high in international rankings, he said.

Fall classes begin at the university on Thursday.

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