UC tuition debate: Governor Brown should restore the California dream, not keep strangling higher ed

This is the testimony I plan to give at the University of California Regents meeting today on the proposed 25% tuition increases:
 
My name is Stanton Glantz.  I am a UCSF professor, past chair of the Systemwide Committee on Planning and Budget, and vice president of the Council of UC Faculty Association.
 
You are debating these proposed tuition increases for one simple reason:
 
When Governor Brown took office he slashed higher ed.
 
Even now, a few years into Governor Brown's 'modest funding increases,' he still spends less on UC and CSU than Arnold Schwarzenegger did his final year as Governor.
 
You should not be arguing how much to raise tuition, but how to mobilize the public support to restore the California Master plan of low cost high quality higher education for all.
 
Returning to 2001-2002, before the massive tuition increases, returning per-student funding to where it was then, and making room for the thousands of students that have been forced out of the system would cost the median California family just $50 a year. 
 
We call on you to fight to restore the California dream.

 
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The Council of UC Faculty Associations holds Governor Jerry Brown’s slashing of public higher education responsible for UC President Napolitano’s recent proposal to budget for 5% tuition increases every year for the next 5 years.
 
Raising tuition is not the solution. There is a better way: provide California students and their families high quality, affordable higher education, as defined by the California Master Plan for Higher Education.
 
The reality is that Governor Brown has not been willing to spend the necessary money to do so even though the cost to do so is surprisingly low.
 
Here are the financial facts:
 
• In 2001-02, Gov. Gray Davis provided $3.2 billion ($4.4 billion in 2014 dollars) to the University of California. Tuition was $3,964.
 
• On taking office in 2003, Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger cut UC's budget by 15% to $2.7 billion and pressed for rapid tuition hikes to shift costs on to students and their families. By the time Gov. Schwarzenegger left office in 2011, he was providing just $2.9 billion to UC. Tuition had tripled to $11,279.
 
• Brown cut UC’s provision to $2.4 billion in his first budget (2011-12).
 
• While Brown has provided small increases to UC in the last 3 years, his 2014-15 budget only includes $2.8 billion for UC, more than one-third less (in real dollars) than Gov. Davis provided more than a decade before.
 
• At the same time that governors have cut support for UC by one-third, the university’s student body has grown by nearly one-third: from 183,000 to 238,000 students as UC continued to meet its Master Plan obligations.
 
• While Governor Brown appealed to UC students to help pass Proposition 30 in 2012, he has only allocated 4.5% of the money it raised to UC.
 
UC’s leaders have responded to these unprecedented cuts by reducing budgets for teaching and research, boosting class sizes, shifting administrative tasks to faculty (leaving less time for students and research), admitting more out-of-state students, and massive tuition hikes that tripled tuition in 15 years.
 
Along with his legacy of high-speed trains and long-distance water tunnels, Governor Brown needs to restore the promise of the California Master Plan for Higher Education:
 
• He should budget for all public higher education, including the State University and Community College systems, at levels that will return them to where they were in 2001-2002, adjusted for inflation and student population growth.
 
• Tuition should not merely be capped but rolled back to 2001-2002 levels, inflation adjusted ($4,717 for the University of California, compared to the $13,860 planned for UC next year).
 
Unlike many dreams, offering affordable, high quality public higher education to all is a bargain. It would cost the median California household just $50 a year.  (Details of calculation at
http://keepcaliforniaspromise.org/3553/restore-2013-14.)
 
The UC Regents and President Napolitano must represent not only the institutional interests of UC students, staff and faculty but also the fundamental public interest of all Californians to restore one of the few fair-minded systems of advancement still open to anyone, from any background, who works hard and demonstrates talent.
 
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Here is a letter to the editor I sent the SF Chron a couple days ago on the same point:
 
The Chronicle's statement that "Its' unrealistic to expect California to roll back the clock to a time not too long ago when public higher education meant a nominal tuition" is incorrect.
 
Pushing the reset button on ALL of California higher education (UC, CSU and the community colleges) to cut tuition to where it was in 2001-2 ($4,717 for UC, compared to the planned $13,860 and comparable rollbacks to the other sectors), returning per-student funding to where it was then, and making room for the hundreds of thousands of students that have been pushed out of the system (often into high cost ripoff for-profit "colleges") would only cost the median family in California $50 a year if done as an income tax surcharge.
 
Doing so would also wipe out almost all new student debt.
 
Solving this problem is not a question of realism.  It is a question of public policy.  Governor Brown, like his predecessor, has decided that he does not want to pay for higher education. 
 
If Brown wanted to restore the California dream for California students and their families, he could.
 
It is up to higher education's leaders make him do it.