Rose colored glasses -- do we need a new prescription?

Yesterday there was a Town Hall meeting at UCSD to discuss campus budget recommendations:

"This open forum will provide an opportunity for faculty, staff and students to communicate directly with members of the Joint Senate-Administration Task Force on Budget. The Task Force is charged with providing recommendations for sustaining UC San Diego�s academic excellence during budget reductions, while protecting our core missions of research and education through cost savings, increased efficiency, and increased non-State revenues. We encourage you to attend and share your vision and ideas regarding the UC San Diego of Tomorrow."

As might have been expected there were a number of well-argued statements as to why the University deserved more funds from the State of California. One of these referred to a recent poll by the Public Policy Institute of California (PPIC) for which one of the findings was that:

Californians give high grades to their public higher education systems but are worried about increased student costs and state budget cuts.

At the UCSD meeting it was mentioned that the poll had been headlined on our local public radio station, and that the message was that the public were strongly supportive of UC. A tweet from Mark Yudof also states:

Meeting with the UC Commission on the Future here in Oakland. We are also reviewing the new PPIC poll that shows CA holds UC in high esteem.

Sadly, the poll itself is not so unambiguous. The actual question was "Overall, is the ___ doing an excellent, good, not so good, or poor job? UC polled as 13% excellent, 49% good. However, the community colleges polled a little higher (13% excellent, 52% good) while CSU was close (9% excellent; 52% good). Given the estimated 2% margin of error for the poll it might be fair to say (as PPIC did) that all sectors of California higher education are held in equivalent high esteem.

Unfortunately perhaps, the poll contained other questions (in addition to the oft-reported lack of confidence in state government). Some perhaps more problematic results (from the PPIC news release):

Given the high value that most Californians place on spending for higher education, what would they be willing to do to offset state spending cuts?

• 68 percent are unwilling to increase student fees. Solid majorities across parties, regions, and demographic groups concur.
• 56 percent are unwilling to pay higher taxes. Although 56 percent of Democrats are willing to pay higher taxes for this purpose, 58 percent of independents and 74 percent of Republicans are not.
• 53 percent would support a higher education construction bond measure on the 2010 ballot. But support is lower among likely voters (46% yes, 47% no) for this hypothetical bond measure and would fall short of the simple majority threshold needed to pass such a measure. Here, too, a partisan split emerges, with 61 percent of Democrats and 51 percent of independents saying they would vote yes on a bond and 55 percent of Republicans saying they would vote no.

Half (50%) of Californians believe that major changes are needed in the higher education system� a 10-point increase from last year�and 39 percent say minor changes are needed. When asked the best method for significantly improving California�s higher education system, about half (52%) say a combination of better use of existing state funds and increased funding is the answer. Just 7 percent say increased funding alone is the key and 38 percent say just using existing funds more wisely is best.

So, UC is not considered special (or at least any more excellent than the other CA higher education sectors); there is a belief that higher education fails to use its existing funds sufficiently wisely; and there is a significant resistance to increasing taxes to support higher education in the state. At the same time, increases in fees are seen as problematic.

I suspect we ignore such views at our peril. Furthermore, despite comments I have heard lamenting the cost of our prisons, I still suspect many of our neighbors would rather see an unemployed professor sitting on their street corner than an unemployed felon!