UC Budget Reality 3: the Per-Student Disaster

The graphic below follows on those of two previous posts (one on UC's corrosive compromises, another on a better budget strategy.) It correlates declining state revenues with a general campus enrollment growth of 33% over the decade (from about 173,000 to about 230,000 students).

We are used to hearing that state funding has fallen 50% since 1990.  When we correct for enrollment, we see that state funding fell by 44% in constant dollars just in the past decade.  State funds have fallen almost 20% since Arnold Schwarzenegger's first budget in 2004-05, or 25% if the partial restoration in his May Revise does not survive the budget process.  The chart shows that during the boom years of the middle part of the decade, the state budget kept UC's per-student state revenues flat.

Because state funds support sponsored research as well as instruction, state cuts pull money out of research. But the most immediate casualty is instruction, particularly for undergraduate students.  For example, recent data from UC San Diego shows that the revenues supporting Academic Affairs are 85% comprised of student tuition and state funds.  Cuts in state funds are only partially made up by tuition hikes (the 32% hike for 2008-10 netted a 2% restoration of core funds), so the result is reduced educational capacity -- at a moment when California faces an educational attainment emergency.

This situation is truly appalling.  None of UC's announced proposals this year come close to addressing it.  The UC Commission on the Future is meeting on Monday.  Which of its recommendations address the problem in a concrete way?