So the chief UC Admissions officer says she is pleased that they have managed to trim enrollment for the University of California campuses next year down 2,600 students overall. Wonderful. She's also pleased that the "yield" rate is down - that a smaller percentage of students accepted the UC offer this year than last year. Hmmm, what was going on in this country in the time period since applications were submitted in November? Major job losses and cuts of student aid? Presumably many students who got accepted had to say no for financial reasons. What a sad day when our universities are happy about providing less service to the community and educating fewer students. How about saying "we did it because we had to, but we are very unhappy with the budget cuts undermining our core mission to educate the next generation of Californians." Did I mention that the UC schools still managed to increase salaries for top administrators this Spring?
At least the UC bureaucrats know where their priorities are.
Wednesday, June 17, 2009
You're Pleased?
Posted by The Law Talking Guy at 12:51 PM
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7 comments:
The good news (if there is any) in this is that the only reason UC officials see reducing enrollment as a good thing in tight financial times is because it costs far more to give a student a UC education than they pay for it - even if they pay "full" price.
There are state universities systems where they are trying to keep enrollment up even while they lay off lecturers and increase teaching loads on faculty. These schools do that because they actually generate revenue from enrollment and will gladly cut the value of the eduction they provide so long as they continue to fill class rooms.
LTG's post...that is very depressing...gilded age indeed.
WW
I should also point out that the UC system has been a favorite target of the Schwarzenegger era. At one point, graduate student fees were raised 40% in the middle of the year. This is a really bad thing because graduate students don't actually pay those fees. Those fees are paid for by the academic departments themselves as part of their support for PhD students. So this action by Governor Muscles was not so much a revenue generator as a mandated transfer of resources from the academic mission of the university to the administrators.
But what do you expect from a Republican (and anti-intellectual) governor who barely graduated from UW-Superior (a really crappy school).
I don't think Arnie's problem is that he doesn't value or respect education. I think his problem is that he doesn't see the connection between education and economic success for the state. It wasn't true for him, nor is it true for most of his showbiz acquaintances. So I think he just doesn't understand the policy implications of cutting education, rather than being really an anti-intellectual.
I think we talking about semantics now. If he doesn't see the economic value of an education for individuals or see its value to the over economy of the state, then I think my interpretation is close to the mark. If "anti-intellectual" isn't quite the right word then I'll gladly bow to an alternative term for the sake of clarifying the point.
RBR...are you saying that you are anti-semantic? :>) How about calling the policy anti-people. Since Bush 41, the Republicans have been cutting education funding and it is by design to dumb down the public and it worked. WW
"are you saying that you are anti-semantic? :>) "
I don't get it....
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