Spending Dip Called Threat to Education : Finances: Heads of UC, Cal State and community college systems tell lawmakers that state’s promise of providing a quality education beyond high school will be compromised.

California is spending a smaller percentage of its revenue on higher education every year, threatening the state’s promise to provide quality education beyond high school for all who seek it, the leaders of the three public higher education systems warned Wednesday.

UC President David P. Gardner, Cal State Chancellor Barry Munitz and David Mertes, chancellor of the statewide community college system, each told the Senate Education Committee that the much-praised, 32-year-old Master Plan for Higher Education cannot be sustained unless the state changes the way it collects and spends its money.

Higher education funding problems “are long term in nature and will not disappear when the current recession ends,” Gardner said.

Gardner said mandated spending for health, welfare and elementary and secondary schools, when added to increased spending for prisons, now accounts for 85% of the state budget. These spending demands are “projected to reach 100% of all state funding by the end of this decade”--leaving nothing for higher education if current growth trends are left unchecked, he added.

Munitz produced data showing that state spending for the 20-campus Cal State system has declined from 4.62% of state revenues in 1985-86 to 3.56% this year. At UC’s nine campuses, the drop has been from 5.6% to 4.9% in the same period.

Noting that the state provides about 30% of the UC budget now, half of what it contributed in 1960, Gardner said, “If this trend continues, we will gradually transfer the University of California into a quasi-private university,” heavily dependent on steadily increasing student fees.

The decline in state support is happening, Munitz said, when enrollments are booming--another 700,000 to 800,000 students are expected to enter California higher education by the year 2005--and the racial and ethnic mix of the student bodies is changing rapidly.

“We are in danger of changing the rules” and making it more difficult for blacks, Latinos and other minorities to enter public colleges and universities, Munitz said. “This is a potential nightmare for the state.”

Warren H. Fox, executive director of the California Postsecondary Education Commission, told the committee that the state already has “reduced access to higher education” by raising student fees, laying off instructors, eliminating class sections and making other budget cuts.

There is a “certain irony” in the fact that UC and CSU are turning students away, while “we have unused classroom space but we lack the operating budget to hire the faculty to fill these classrooms,” Mertes said.

After listening to this litany of woe, committee members asked the higher education executives what should be done about the problems. They didn’t get many specific answers.

Sen. Gary Hart (D-Santa Barbara) noted that two “blue ribbon” committees studied the Master Plan for Higher Education in the 1980s, determined it was basically sound policy and made few recommendations for change.

“But the irony is that in 1992, the master plan seems to be in some jeopardy,” he added.

The Master Plan for Higher Education, enacted into law in 1960, says the top 12.5% of the state’s high school graduates are eligible for UC, the rest of the top one-third for CSU and the rest for community colleges. It defines UC’s role as the state’s principal research and graduate education institution, while Cal State concentrates on undergraduate instruction and master’s degrees.

Sen. Patrick Johnston (D-Stockton) asked Gardner whether Proposition 98, the 1988 voter-approved initiative that guarantees public schools and community colleges about 40% of state General Fund revenues, should be repealed so more money would be available for higher education.

Gardner replied that he did not favor earmarking any state revenues but that he also thought public schools and community colleges are already underfunded.

Johnston asked if the state should reduce spending on health or welfare programs.

“We are really not in a position to advise you where to make cuts or where to add,” Gardner answered.

But, in a part of his prepared statement that he did not read, Gardner said that if the state cannot spend more money on the university, then UC might cut the percentage of high school graduates eligible for admission from 12.5% to “some lower percentage” and also “impose tuition on California resident students.”

Several committee members suggested that more lower-division students (freshmen and sophomores) might be educated at community colleges.

Figures obtained from Mertes’ office show that the cost of educating a full-time student is $16,303 at the University of California, $7,192 at the California State University and $3,073 at the California community colleges.

Gardner disputed these numbers. He said it costs the state only $9,000 to $9,200 to educate a UC student.

He also said UC costs cannot be compared with those at a two-year community college because the university educates not only upper-division undergraduates but also graduate and professional students in such expensive fields as medicine.

Baffled by these conflicting claims, the committee asked the Postsecondary Education Commission to study the comparative costs of educating freshmen and sophomores at the three segments: UC, Cal State and the community colleges.