Hundreds of California State University students, faculty, and staff gathered at the system’s Long Beach headquarters on Tuesday, July 11, to oppose proposed 6% annual tuition increases over the next five years — which CSU officials say is necessary to help offset a $1.5 billion funding gap.
The CSU Board of Trustees’ Committee on Finance weighed the proposal on Tuesday, and ultimately decided to send it to the full board for final approval. The board will likely hear the item in September, though the date won’t be confirmed until the agenda for that month’s meeting released.
A CSU workgroup first identified the massive funding gap in a nearly 70-page report released in May. It found that the system only has enough money to pay for about 85% of the actual costs of education, institutional and academic support and student services at all of its campuses.
That’s largely because the CSU’s two primary revenue sources — funding from California’s budget and tuition — haven’t kept up with the ever-increasing costs of operating the nation’s largest state university system, the report said. About 60% of the CSU’s operating budget is funded by the state; the remaining 40% comes from tuition revenue.
State funding, officials said Tuesday, is volatile and highly dependent on external factors that impact economic stability throughout the state. And though California Gov. Gavin Newsom has agreed to a funding compact with the CSU that will provide a 5% annual boost to its annual budget — amounting to a $227.3 million increase for this fiscal year — officials say it isn’t nearly enough to bridge the funding gap.
“Over the past two decades, state tax revenues that support public higher education institutions have significantly fluctuated,” said Ryan Storm, the CSU’s Assistant Vice Chancellor for Budget, on Tuesday, “with a trend toward a decrease in real dollars across the country and within California.”
The state’s share of…
Read the full article here
