Cal State Long Beach Faces Fee Hikes, Cuts in Courses

LONG BEACH — An advisory panel at Cal State Long Beach has recommended that the university boost tuition and fees, drop several courses and make sweeping cuts in non-instructional areas next fall to offset an anticipated $10-million shortfall in its budget for the coming academic year.

The university, along with campuses throughout the California State University system, is bracing itself for massive cuts in state funds that make up an estimated 80% of the system’s revenue. The cuts would follow $8 million in budget cuts at Cal State Long Beach in the past two years.

Tuition and student fees would be increased 40% under the proposal.

University President Curtis McCray is expected to approve the suggested cuts by the end of June, when the state Legislature makes its final budget recommendations. McCray was unavailable for comment on the group’s report, released Friday, but said earlier in the week that the impending budget cuts were “as near a disaster as I have ever seen.”

On the academic side, the chemical engineering department would be eliminated, as would master’s degree programs in some foreign languages, counseling, education and education administration. Undergraduate degrees in some nursing specialties would also be discontinued.

In addition, six faculty members with tenure and a probationary faculty member were targeted for layoffs.

Provost for Academic Affairs Karl Anatol said the advisory committee tried to minimize the impact on academics and focused mostly on academic support services. Anatol is a non-voting member of the committee of administrators, faculty members and students.

Those non-instructional areas will bear the brunt of the cuts as the university struggles to balance its $108-million operating budget, Anatol said. At least 100 non-faculty employees--such as clerks, campus mail carriers, groundskeepers, custodians, financial aid employees--will be eliminated.

“We wanted to make sure the impact on instruction was as minimal as possible, so we had to look elsewhere to make up the reductions,” he said. “I think it is fair.”

Anatol said the university has “scheduled to the bone” its fall catalogue of class offerings, adding that the impending cuts will undoubtedly delay graduation for hundreds of students next year.

“The four-year degree is a thing of the past,” he said.